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Saturday, 16 October 2021 (YJC)_ EU Foreign Policy Chief said the European Union is not thinking about a “Plan B” if diplomacy with Iran fails.
The European Union is not thinking about a “Plan B” if diplomacy with Iran fails, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said on Friday in Washington, as opposed to a US statement that “every option” is on the table.
“It’s time to go back to the negotiating table. And I don’t want to think about Plan Bs because no... Plan B that I could imagine would be a good one,” Borrell said.
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Since then, Tehran has been rebuilding its stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher levels of purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up the enrichment process.
Borrell’s comment against a Plan B came in contrast with remarks US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made two days earlier that the US “will look at every option to deal with the challenges posed by Iran."
Blinken, who was speaking at an event with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed marking a year since the Abraham Accords, normalization and peace agreements between Israel and four Arab nations, added that “We continue to believe that diplomacy is the most effective way to do that, but it takes two to engage in diplomacy, and we have not... seen from Iran a willingness to do that at this point.”
The Secretary of State met last week with the top diplomats from the EU, Israel, and the UAE and with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, with Iran as the top agenda item.
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