The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, on Monday 3 February, called on all parties to the Iranian nuclear deal to do more to ensure compliance with the deal.
"We have to prepare, from both sides, a better implementation", he said at a press briefing in Tehran. According to him, while Europeans expect positive steps from the Iranians on the nuclear side, the Iranians expect some positive aspects from the Europeans on the economic side. In particular, the Europeans have created the INSTEX mechanism. "We will try to use INSTEX as much as we can, (but) I have to recognise that until now INSTEX has not been able to produce significant transactions ", acknowledged the High Representative.
Mr Borrell wanted to be reassuring regarding the activation of the dispute resolution mechanism foreseen in the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by France, Germany and the United Kingdom. "This does not mean that these countries want to go to the UN Security Council in order to definitely cancel the nuclear deal", he said. And to recall that the three countries had stressed that they wanted, on the contrary, to keep the deal alive.
Another proof of the willingness to keep the deal alive: "to give time for negotiation, all of them agreed on enlarging and continuously postponing the dates and the time limits that the regulation of the JCPOA foresees", so as not to be strictly limited to the 15 days provided for in the agreement, explained Mr Borrell. He added that: "We'll take care of it in the next few weeks or more".
Another subject of discussion with the Iranian authorities was stability and security in the Middle East, "to look at what we could do in order to increase the stability and the trust among actors in the region, which is certainly lacking", according to the High Representative. "We cannot talk about stability in the region without taking Iran into account", he said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)