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Dutch embassy to serve as EU office in Tehran

19 April 2016 10:24 (UTC+04:00)
Dutch embassy to serve as EU office in Tehran

The EU first diplomatic delegation will be sent to Tehran in the near future, the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said.

The delegation will be based in Dutch embassy till opening the EU office in Tehran, she told Iran's Tasnim news agency.

Mogherini, heading a high-ranking political and economic delegation of seven European commissioners arrived in Tehran on April 16 and held talks with senior Iranian officials. Opening an EU office in Tehran was on the agenda of the mutual talks.

"We have decided to send first team that will be operating with the support and the help of the current presidency of the European Union, Netherlands," Mogherini said.

The mission of the future EU delegation would be mainly supporting and sustaining all the work that, the parties decided to start on re-launching dialogue and cooperation on many different sectors, she added.

Mogherini further said that the EU plans to develop dialogues on energy, economy and business presence in Iran as well as technology or transport.

"Having a presence in Tehran would be helpful to develop the cooperation in a structured way, and also would provide a support for all the business, companies and also the financial European sector that is willing to engage in Iran, providing a framework for the European engagement in the country from a technical point of view," she added

While responding to a question about resuming banking ties with Iran, the EU diplomat said that there is no reason for European banks not to come to Iran.

"We are working very hard with all the European banks, with the financial sector in Europe to, first of all, explain that the situation has changed, as the 16th of January and all the economic and financial sanctions that were related to the nuclear program have been lifted," she said.

So the banks and the financial sector in Europe are facing a completely different situation, the top EU diplomat added.

"We have provided them with full information about the change of the situation," she said, adding the big banks maybe need a little bit of time to adjust to the new situation and adapt to the new situation, however the small banks, are coming in Iran already.

Mogherini further said that the EU is also negotiating with the US side on the issue.

"They know how much this issue is very important for us as Europeans, and again, we cannot force anyone to do anything, but we can encourage, we can reassure, we can explain that the legal provisions are now completely different from before, and that."

Iran has asked the EU to force the US to settle banking problems following the implementation of the nuclear deal. In a meeting with Mogherini in her recent Tehran visit, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Shamkhani asked the EU to confront with what he called Washington's "obstruction" of nuclear deal implementation.

He argued that the US is seeking to continue its sanctions policy against Iran and is troubling the implementation of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka nuclear deal), referring to Washington's approach as "undesirable and unconstructive". Earlier the same day, Iran's Foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, underlined that the other parties, in particular the US, should in practice fulfill their obligations under the nuclear deal.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Mogherini, Zarif said Washington should do more to remove obstacles to Iran's banking system.

Earlier, Valiollah Seif, the head of Iran's central bank, accused the US and the EU of failing to honor the JCPOA by keeping Iran locked out of the international financial system.

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