The presidents of Iran and France have exchanged views on ways to improve relations and agreed on a roadmap for further engagement, according to a senior government official in Tehran.
President Ebrahim Raeisi and his French counterpart Emanuel Macron held a 90-minute phone conversation on Saturday, Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, said in a post on Twitter.
He said the French president is keen to boost engagement with Iran.
“The 2 sides discussed how to promote relations esp about ongoing [sanctions removal] negotiations & regional developments. They agreed on a roadmap for engagement,” the Iranian official tweeted.
Iran showed to the world the peaceful nature of its nuclear program by signing a landmark nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with six states. However, Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and its subsequent re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran left the future of the deal in limbo.
Negotiations started in the Austrian capital city of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of removing anti-Iran sanctions and examining the United States’ seriousness in rejoining the accord.
The talks, however, have been stalled since August 2022 due to Washington’s insistence on not removing all the sanctions and its failure to offer necessary guarantees that it will not abandon the deal again.
In a statement at a session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on June 7, Iran’s permanent representative at the United Nations office in Vienna Mohsen Naziri Asl urged the European governments to avoid “provocative and unconstructive attitudes” towards the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear program and work towards the resolution of disputes.
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