Iran’s Araqchi to Deliver Rouhani’s Message to Macron in Paris

Araqchi is visiting the French capital as the special representative of President Rouhani, said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi in a Monday tweet.

The visit comes a few days after a phone conversation between Rouhani and Macron, during which the former underlined the importance of Paris’ endeavours in ensuring the existence of the Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA.

Rouhani told Macron that Iran and the European signatories to the JCPOA need to invest in efforts aimed at implementation of “balanced steps” that could safeguard the deal because “there are some in the United States, who would not want the efforts seeking to save the JCPOA to succeed.”

He said that despite existing setbacks and sabotage activities, Tehran believed that the remaining signatories had to seize the time and task their experts with finding creative and appropriate approaches that save the agreement.

“Europe must expedite its attempts to meet Iran’s legitimate [economic] interests [under the deal] and bring about truce in the US economic warfare,” the Iranian president stated.

France was the first country to contact the Islamic Republic following Tehran’s May 8 decision to reduce some of its JCPOA commitments in reaction to the US withdrawal from the deal and Europe’s failure to live up to its commitments under the deal.

There were talks of a plan shared with Iran by President Macron, known as “freeze for freeze”, based on which Iran would stop its nuclear decision and the US would lift its nuclear-related sanctions against Iran. However, Iranian officials did not explicitly confirm receiving such an offer.