Enrique Mora, the deputy head of the European Union’s foreign policy service, who is coordinating the negotiations in Vienna on a nuclear deal with Iran, was detained in Germany, at Frankfurt airport. He himself announced this on May 13.
“I was detained by the German police at Frankfurt airport on my way from Tehran to Brussels. Not a single explanation,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
It is noted that Mora’s passport and phones were taken away. He later announced that he had been released.
Earlier, on May 11, it was reported that Mora met in Tehran with Iran’s chief negotiator in Vienna on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Ali Bagheri. The parties discussed the remaining and unresolved issues at the talks in Vienna on the resumption of the JCPOA on the Iranian nuclear program and the lifting of US sanctions on Tehran.
Prior to this, on April 26, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the US administration was concerned about the fact that Iran could create nuclear weapons in the next two weeks. She noted that since the US withdrawal from the JCPOA under former President Donald Trump, Iran has rapidly accelerated its nuclear program and reduced cooperation with international inspectors.
The JCPOA was concluded in 2015, it assumed the lifting of sanctions in exchange for limiting Iran’s nuclear program as a guarantor of Tehran’s non-receipt of nuclear weapons. However, in May 2018, the United States announced a unilateral withdrawal from it and the restoration of tough sanctions against Tehran. In response, Iran gradually began to abandon its obligations under the treaty.
In 2020, the US decided to lift the sanctions exemptions on Iran’s nuclear program granted under the Iran nuclear deal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington is repealing all but one exemption for civilian nuclear cooperation.
