Mogherini in Bargaining Mood
Mogherini in Bargaining Mood
Nathalie Tocci, the Special Adviser to European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, has recently made some remarks which have been highlighted by some Western media. She has said Iran’s 60-day deadline to the European troika is not enough.

She says Iran has to give the EU even more time in order that EU can show its commitment to the JCPOA. At the same time, Mogherini said that in upcoming weeks, Europe’s financial mechanism for trade with Iran “INSTEX” would become operational.

Undoubtedly, there is a meaningful link hidden in remarks of Mogherini and her advisor. A link, if it is interpreted as dissemination of news and apportioning the mission, is not a complicated one. Tocci’s remarks can be considered as the prelude and Mogherin’s as conclusion.

Tocci has claimed that Europe has no secret goals against Iran like the U.S. This claim is uttered while the U.S. and Europe’s two-way anti-Iranian relations have been shaped in the form of “Hidden Diplomacy” and it still goes on.

Since Donald Trump took office as the U.S. President, these relations have transformed and they have continued since the U.S. pulled out of the JCPOA.

Analysts in the international affairs are well aware that the output of this hidden diplomacy is the calculated delay of EU for launching the mechanism for financial exchanges and exercising constant pressures on Iran’s defensive, missile and regional activities.

Among Tocci’s remarks there is another issue which has been raised and it is about Iran’s 60-day deadline. Regarding that it is over one year that the U.S. has pulled out of the JCPOA, even giving 60 days as a deadline seems too much and unnecessary.

Anyway, the European officials’ insistence for buying time is an issue to ponder over.  Actually the truth is that EU’s behaviors regarding the JCPOA and with Iran are follow-up of policies of the U.S. officials and Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s at the top of them.

Now, the White House officials have ordered EU to continue the tactic of buying time in regard to Iran and to the JCPOA in order that the U.S. can have more time to exercise more pressure on Iran’s economy.

So Tocci’s indirect demand from Iranian officials for extending the deadline for resumption of its JCPOA activities is itself a translation of a pre-planned policy between Washington and EU.

So it is obvious that Iran’s diplomacy system and foreign policy should not only reject  the demand but also pursue seriously its 60-day deadline to the Europeans , especially the European troika,  and remind them by an official statement that the country is determined on its decision and they will not retreat even with extending it by one day.

Hamid Reza NaghashianBy: Hamid Reza Naghashian

  • source : IRAN NEWS