Nuclear agreement with Iran: No information on talks of EU chief negotiator in Tehran

During Mora’s return flight from Tehran to Brussels, there was a still unsolved incident during a stopover in Frankfurt am Main. The German Federal Police detained the Spaniard and two other high-ranking diplomats accompanying him separately for 30 to 40 minutes for “questioning”.

By Knut Mellenthin

Following a visit to Tehran by his chief of staff Henrique Mora, the European Union’s top foreign policy official Josep Borrell has expressed optimism about a resumption of the Vienna talks. Negotiations have been taking place there since the beginning of April 2021 on the restoration of an agreement concluded in 2015 that provided for temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions. During his tenure as president, Donald Trump had ordered the US to pull out of its commitments in May 2018.

Diplomats from the countries involved in the Vienna talks – Iran, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia – have not returned to the Austrian capital since mid-March. Iran does not want to continue the negotiations until the USA, which is only indirectly involved, shows concessions on key issues. The main issue is reportedly the lifting of sanctions against the Iranian “Revolutionary Guards”, which were put on Trump’s list of “terrorist organisations” in 2019.

Mora, who represents the EU in the negotiations with Iran, had been sent to Tehran by Borrell last week with a message, the contents of which are not yet known. After Mora’s return on Friday, Borrell claimed during a press conference on the G7 meeting in Weissenhaus Castle in Holstein that the talks in Tehran with Iranian chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri-Kani had gone “better than expected”. The Iranian reaction to his message was “positive enough” to believe that a resumption of the Vienna talks was now possible. At least this means that there is a “perspective” for reaching an agreement. In this respect, Mora’s trip to Tehran was “very profitable”.

However, the optimism displayed by Borrell is not borne out by statements from either Mora or the Iranian side. An assessment of the state of the negotiations is still impossible more than a year after they began, because all parties involved seem to have agreed on strict confidentiality and have surprisingly managed to prevent any significant information from leaking out. The two main adversaries, Iran and the USA, regularly proclaim with identical formulations without any factual content that an agreement is “within reach” provided the other side finally musters the courage to “make the right decisions”.

During Mora’s return flight from Tehran to Brussels, there was a still unsolved incident during a stopover in Frankfurt am Main. The German Federal Police detained the Spaniard and two other high-ranking diplomats accompanying him separately for 30 to 40 minutes for “questioning”. According to Mora’s statements, his passport and telephones were temporarily taken away. At no point were they given a reason for the police measures. Mora sees this as a violation of diplomatic immunity, which is guaranteed in an international agreement concluded in 1961.

Not only the Foreign Office and the German government, but also Borrell as Mora’s superior and the EU are openly trying to pass over the incident as quickly and wordlessly as possible. A plausible explanation from the Federal Police was still pending on Sunday.

From: junge Welt, Issue of 16.05.2022, Page 7 / Abroad