According to a diplomatic source in Iran, EU foreign policy leader Josep Borrell met with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Tuesday outside of a summit in Jordan. The meeting, which Iran’s official news agency IRNA confirmed, takes place while talks in Vienna aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are coming to a standstill. Enrique Mora, the 27-nation bloc’s chief nuclear negotiator, was present, the Iranian diplomatic source told AFP. His Iranian counterpart, Ali Bagheri, was also there, according to IRNA. In a tweet, Borrell stated that the meeting was “essential amidst deteriorating Iran-EU ties” and that they had decided to keep in touch while trying to salvage the Vienna accord.
The historic 2015 agreement sought to stop Iran from covertly constructing a nuclear weapon, an aim the Islamic Republic has consistently denied. But ever since the United States withdrew unilaterally in 2018 under the leadership of then-President Donald Trump, it has been dangling by a thread. Amir-Abdollahian had declared the Tuesday summit in Jordan would be an “excellent chance” to restart talks on the problem. The EU last week placed further sanctions on Iran due to what it called the “repression” of protests and its military support for Russia’s conflict in Ukraine. This meeting between him and Borrell takes place in the wake of these events. Borrell said in his tweet that he had emphasised the “need to immediately suspend military assistance to Russia and internal.
The “need to promptly suspend military support to Russia and internal persecution in Iran,” according to Borrell’s tweet, was emphasised. Since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who had been detained in Tehran for allegedly violating the nation’s severe dress code for women, died while in detention on September 16, protests have erupted across Iran. According to human rights organisations, during a crackdown on the movement, Iranian security forces have killed at least 469 protesters. Early in December, the nation’s top security organisation provided a death toll of over 200.
