Josep Borrell, the head of foreign policy for the European Union, will visit Iran on Friday in an effort to persuade Tehran to resurrect the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the other world powers, which the US withdrew from but is now trying to rescue.
Tehran constrained its nuclear program to make it more difficult for it to obtain a bomb in exchange for relief from economic sanctions under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached by Iran and six international powers.
Josep Borrell will visit Iran on June 24 and 25, according to a statement from the EU, as part of ongoing efforts to resume full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Borrell will meet with Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister.
Tehran, for its part, stated that the nuclear deal was not specifically mentioned and that its focus was on the lifting of sanctions.
According to ministry spokeswoman Saeed Khatibzadeh, “Bilateral relations, regional, and international concerns, as well as the most recent status of sanctions relief, will be discussed during the visit, which is part of the continuing negotiations between Iran and the European Union.”
The resurrected agreement appeared to be imminent in March, but negotiations broke down due in part to disagreement over whether the US should remove Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
