Iran urges Europe to mediate with the US

Mohammad Javad Zarif, foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was clear in his warning to the European Union (EU) to act as a mediator with the United States in order to maintain the nuclear deal signed in 2015. 

The Iranian foreign minister asked the EU on Monday to mediate between the Persian state and the North American giant to save the nuclear pact signed six years ago together with France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and China, which limited Iran's atomic programme, above all in terms of weapons, in exchange for political and economic benefits.  

The previous US administration of Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018, citing Iran's non-compliance, and imposed political and economic sanctions, notably those related to the oil trade, the main source of Persian financing. This was followed by mutual accusations and clashes that led to offensives against cargo ships in Gulf waters, of which the ayatollahs' regime and Shiite groups sympathetic to it were accused, and threats by the Iranian leadership regarding further breaches of the terms of the nuclear pact and the maintenance of trade in its crude oil despite the US punitive measures.  

"You know clearly there can be a mechanism to basically either synchronise it, or coordinate what can be done," Mohammad Javad Zarif said on CNN International. Zarif said that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell should play a role in his position of coordinator of the 2015 agreement "and can "sort of choreograph the actions that are needed to be taken by the United States and the actions that are needed to be taken by Iran," Zarif said.

The Vienna Agreement signed by Tehran with the major powers (the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom), as well as the EU, aimed to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring the atomic bomb, with strict limits on its nuclear programme, assuming that it will remain exclusively civilian and peaceful. In return, the international community had lifted all its economic sanctions against Iran. 

But former US President Donald Trump, deeming it insufficient in the nuclear field and taking into account Iran's other "destabilising" activities in the Middle East, withdrew Washington in 2018 and reinstated and then tightened US sanctions on Iran. Meanwhile, Europe criticised Trump's stance and worked to maintain the deal.  

"The EU is trying to find the means for the US to return to the deal and for Iran to fully respect its commitments again," a European Commission spokesman said on Monday on the matter.  

The new US president, Joe Biden, has pledged to rejoin the text, but on condition that Tehran first return to respecting its nuclear restrictions, from which it began to free itself in response to US sanctions. However, Iranian diplomacy has so far demanded that the Biden administration take the first step by lifting sanctions first. Mohammad Javad Zarif's proposal appears to open the door for the first time to a "synchronised" process, although he reaffirms that the Americans, who have abandoned the deal, must first "demonstrate their good faith". 

In an interview with US broadcaster NBC on Monday, new US Secretary of State Antony Blinken estimated that it would "take some time" for Iran to return to the terms of the nuclear pact, and then it would still "take us some time to assess whether they, in fact, had made good on their obligations".