Iranian, EU Top Diplomats Discuss Developments in Vienna Talks on Nuclear Deal - Tehran Fri 21st May 2021 | 04:32 PM
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have held phone talks, during which they exchanged views on the progress made at the ongoing negotiations on the revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held in the Austrian capital of Vienna, Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Friday
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st May, 2021) Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have held phone talks, during which they exchanged views on the progress made at the ongoing negotiations on the revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held in the Austrian capital of Vienna, Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Tanks participate in a Victory Day parade in Russian-occupied Ukrainian city Donetsk on May 9, 2021. Russian flags decorate the parade route while a banner declares Russian Donbas. (REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)
The European Union has this week warned that Russia is seeking to “de facto integrate” the Kremlin-controlled separatist republics of eastern Ukraine. The EU raised the alarm in a document sent to member states, Bloomberg reported on May 12.
The European Union highlighted a number of specific steps taken by the Kremlin in eastern Ukraine, such as the holding of illegitimate elections and distribution of Russian passports to local Ukrainian citizens. Taken together, these measures are “aimed at the de facto integration of Ukraine’s non-government controlled areas into Russia.” The EU’s External Action Service is now expected to produce a more detailed report on the topic.
Talk of an EU–Africa partnership may have only emerged in the last two years, but the promise of better trade and political relations with its southern ‘sister continent’ came from Jean Claude Juncker, who set out plans for a continent–to–continent trade deal and a change in the narrative in his 2018 State of the Union speech.
“Africa does not need charity, it needs true and fair partnerships. And Europe needs this partnership just as much,” Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
While Europe’s rhetoric on Africa changed with Juncker, the momentum has come from his successor as European Commission chief.
The agenda included the Iran nuclear deal, the European Union External Action Service reported
BRUSSELS, May 4./TASS/. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell met on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the margins of the G7 Ministerial Meeting to discuss relations with Russia and China, as well as the Iran nuclear deal, the European Union External Action Service reported.
Read also The meeting was an opportunity to discuss on a bilateral basis some of the most urgent foreign and security challenges ahead, which were also the subject of discussion among G7 Foreign Ministers in their two-day meeting, it said.
The European Union condemned Russia’s expulsion of 20 Czech diplomats from their embassy in Moscow, and the Czech Republic responded by expelling Russian diplomats of their own. This week’s events mark a deepening of the worst diplomatic row between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.
The origins of the diplomatic hostilities lie back in 2014, when two explosions rocked an ammunitions facility in the eastern Czech Republic, killing two and leading to the evacuation of several hundred. The explosion was assumed by most to have been an accident until 17 April 2021, when Czech prime minister Andrej Babis accused the GRU (Russian military intelligence) of orchestrating the attacks, linking them back to two individuals using the names Ruslan Borishov and Alexander Petrov. Those two individuals are most infamous for carrying out a 2018 nerve agent attack on English soil against an ex-Russian spy and his daughter. The attack in England was a failure, killing two innocent b