The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, continues to refuse to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement - even as Tehran cracks down on protesters at home and supports Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Borrell said critics of his efforts to revive the agreement perhaps „don’t value enough“ the dangers of a nuclear Iran. “As far as I know, there is not an alternative to this deal to try to avoid Iran becoming nuclear,” he said.
The Spaniard further explained that his role as coordinator of nuclear diplomacy does not prevent him from pressuring Tehran over its actions at home and abroad. He said he speaks regularly with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. “Look, I can tell you my last conversation: Stop capital punishment. Stop repression…So if you continue on this way, you will make (it) impossible to have any kind of political arrangement.”
To be sure, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany-which, along with the United States, negotiated the 2015 agreement with Iran-remain in favor of reviving the deal. But the chances of reviving the agreement appear minimal at present, according to the WSJ. Not only are most European diplomats skeptical about the deal's survival. The mood in the U.S. has also changed. After former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018, the Biden administration made reviving the 2015 agreement one of its top foreign policy goals.
But the Iranian regime's crackdown on protesters and the use of Iranian drones against Ukraine, at the latest, have reversed the stance of many experts.