EU's top diplomat in Iran to de-escalate tensions

Josep Borrell, EU’s top diplomat visited Iran’s capital Tehran on Monday with the aim of conveying the EU’s strong commitment to preserve the nuclear deal.
Borrell’s mission aims “to de-escalate tensions and seek opportunities for political solutions to the current crisis,” said the office of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
During his two-day visit, Borrell met with Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and exchanged views on the ways to ease tensions, followed by a separate meeting with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament speaker Ali Larijani.
The meetings’ agenda was topped by the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and France’s, Germany’s and UK’s commitment to make the deal work, as well as the INSTEX mechanism and US’ role in the region.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is still fully ready to interact and cooperate with the European Union to settle issues and whenever the other side lives up to its commitments completely, Iran is ready to return to its commitments,” said Rouhani on the implementation of the nuclear deal.
The European Union has been struggling to ease tensions, which further escalated after the US killed the Irani General Qassem Soleimani in a drone airstrike in Baghdad on 3 January.
“As the EU’s High Representative, I will do everything in my power to create a robust interaction for saving the JCPOA,” said EU’s top diplomat.