Possible Nuclear Deal Can Result in Leap in Iran-EU Relations: Zarif
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a long-awaited nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers will greatly promote cooperation between Tehran and Europe.
“We have always emphasized Europe’s role and expansion of cooperation with the European countries, and reaching an agreement on the nuclear issue can cause a leap in such cooperation,” Zarif said in a meeting with the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini in Brussels on Monday.
Mogherini, for her part, voiced the European nations’ great enthusiasm for clinching a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran, and called for attempts to bridge the gaps.
Earlier in the day, Zarif held nearly five hours of talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the Swiss city of Lausanne before heading for Brussels to meet Mogherini and foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany.
Mogherini told reporters the talks in Brussels had been helpful.
"We discussed all the remaining open gaps and the way forward," she said.
Reports suggest that following the Brussels meeting, the Iranian delegation is expected to continue talks with Americans in Lausanne, and will be joined later in the week by senior European officials and possibly foreign ministers, depending on how the talks develop.
Iran and the group of six countries are in talks to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
