European Union FM to Iran to ease tensions

The European Union said in a statement on Sunday that the bloc's foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, will visit Iran this week to meet Iranian officials, in an attempt to ease tensions with Tehran.

Borell will meet, during the visit, on Monday and Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif.

"Borrell has a strong mandate from the European Union foreign ministers to engage in a diplomatic dialogue with partners in the region to reduce tension and seek opportunities for political solutions to the current crisis," the statement added.

Borrell called on January 24 for the signatories of the nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna to a meeting in February in order to preserve the agreement threatened with collapse.

In Vienna, Iran had agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of international sanctions strangling its economy, but the United States have withdrawn from the agreement and renewed sanctions on Iran since 2018 thus depriving Iran of the economic benefits that it was expecting from the agreement.

Tensions rose sharply in the region after the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in early January in Iraq.

J,O