28 Mar 2024
Thursday 20 February 2020 - 14:35
Story Code : 370668

Austrian minister to travel to Iran amid nuclear tensions

AP Austrias foreign minister said Wednesday that he will travel to Tehran this weekend amid efforts by European countries to keep alive Irans nuclear agreement with world powers.

Alexander Schallenberg said after meeting his German counterpart in Berlin that he will be taking a European message to Tehran on Saturday and Sunday after also meeting the European Unions foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, this week.

Tensions have been escalating steadily since 2018, when President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of Tehrans nuclear deal with world powers. The Trump administration reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran as part of its maximum pressure campaign on the Islamic republic.

Iran since has begun breaking terms of the 2015 deal limiting its enrichment of uranium.

The remaining signatories the European trio of Germany, France and Britain, plus Russia and China have been trying to keep the deal afloat. While Austria is not part of the agreement, the deal was negotiated in large part in Vienna.

Europeans agree that we must contribute everything to the situation being de-escalated, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. He stressed that the maximum pressure strategy is not promising in our view, but we have increased the pressure on Iran, and welcomed Schallenbergs trip.

The Europeans have invoked a dispute resolution mechanism designed to resolve issues with the deal or refer them to the U.N. Security Council.

Schallenberg said that it is also important ... to repeat our points its not enough to have said them once.
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