EU takes ‘vigilant’ stance on US-Iran talks with new sanctions

Next round of talks hosted by Omani diplomats are scheduled for Saturday

German and French foreign ministers Annalena Baerbock and Jean-Noel Barrot before an EU meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. AFP

France, Britain and Germany will be watchful of nuclear discussions between the US and Iran to ensure they take account of European interests, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday.

“We will be vigilant, along with our British and German friends and partners, to ensure that any [US-Iran] negotiations that may take place comply with our security interests with regard to Iran's nuclear programme,” Mr Barrot said as he arrived for an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg.

The EU was not asked to take part in the indirect US-Iran talks that took place last weekend in Oman despite the bloc leading diplomatic engagement with Iran since 2006. Both the US and Iran described them as constructive and they are scheduled to continue on Saturday.

A second round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran will be held in Oman's Muscat, Iran's state news agency Irna said on Monday, quoting Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei. EU officials had earlier said the talks would take place in Rome.

You really have to take action against that policy of just picking people off the streets

EU diplomat

“We are happy that these negotiations are taking place,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp. “We believe that Iran should not become a nuclear weapon state. But the best thing is if we can achieve that through negotiations. Those negotiations are taking place now and they will continue next Saturday."

The EU hopes to co-ordinate with the US to have a "unified approach" on Iran, said the bloc's foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas. France, Germany and the UK – known as the E3 – are the only European nations that were party to a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The deal is politically defunct since the US's withdrawal in 2018 during President Donald Trump's first term.

"We are constantly talking with the E3 countries what the position could be, because the deadline of the snapback is really approaching us," Ms Kallas said, referring to the possible reinstatement of sanctions when the JCPOA expires in October.

"We also need to discuss this with the United States," Ms Kallas said at a press conference, in response to a question from The National. "It's important to have really unified approach to this, because nobody wants to see Iran developing a nuclear weapon. So we are concentrating our efforts on that."

Hostage diplomacy sanctioned

The EU also announced on Monday more sanctions against seven Iranian officials with the aim of targeting the country’s so-called hostage diplomacy against westerners. People hit with sanctions included judges at the courts of appeal of Tehran and Shiraz as well as the head of Evin Prison in the Iranian capital, Hedayatollah Farzadi. Shiraz Prison was also listed.

“It was about time,” Mr Barrot said. “Because the conditions in which some of our French and European compatriots are detained are shameful and comparable to torture under international law, and some of them are deprived of consular protection.”

The Iranian flag behind the fence of the Iranian embassy in Berlin. EPA-EFE

Speaking ahead of the meeting, a senior EU diplomat said “Iran's hostage policy is a huge concern among a long list of concerns that we have when it comes to Iran".

“At one point, you really have to take action against that policy of just picking people off the streets, throwing them in jail just to get something from some European member states,” the source said.

“That's what we're doing. We are actually listing those, or some of those that we deem responsible for that policy – just as an indication how seriously we take this, because that's not a policy that should exist between civilised nations.”

A number of Europeans have been arrested in the past years by Iran and released in exchange for Iranian nationals detained in Europe. Most are detained at Evin.

French citizen Olivier Grondeau was released by Iranian authorities last month. He had been imprisoned in Shiraz in 2022 as he was travelling across the world. But schoolteacher Cecile Koehler and her companion, retired teacher Jacques Paris, remain in detention.

A Swedish diplomat working for the EU, Johann Floderus, was released last June in exchange for Iranian Hamid Nouri, who had been serving a sentence in a Swedish prison for war crimes in the Iran-Iraq war.

Mr Floderus had been arrested at Tehran airport in April 2022 as he returned from holiday with friends, and was charged with crimes that carried the death penalty. They included security, collaboration with Israel and “corruption on Earth” charges.

In announcing France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood at a conference being co-hosted with Saudi Arabia in June, President Emmanuel Macron also highlighted this week the need to take a firm stand against Iran. There is a view that Iran’s anti-Israel activities in the Middle East will continue to spread without a revival of efforts to implement a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

French citizen Olivier Grondeau on a plane after being released by Iranian authorities in March. AFP