Following the start of fresh talks between the Iranian regime and Europeans on saving the JCPOA without the US, Iranian state-run media has been buzzing with reports and analysis on the subject with various factions blaming each other over the negotiations not bearing any result.
On July 8, Tasim state-run News Agency, linked to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, published an article criticizing talks with Europe, from the 2003 Sa’d Abad Agreement between Iran and the European troika (Britain, France, and Germany) to current ongoing negotiations over the JCPOA. The article then goes on to say that European negotiators have little respect for their Iranian counterparts proving its point by publishing images of these negotiations.
Tasnim describes the next image like this:
“During the Sa’d Abad Agreement, in an act of disrespect, a European official did not even follow proper sitting etiquette in front of the President and pointed the bottom of his feet at the representative of the Iranian government. This unfortunate event happened in a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Rouhani in October 2013 and was repeated in a number of other meetings.”
For another image, Tasnim News Agency writes, “A European Parliamentary delegation was dispatched to Iran. In an act of disrespect, Tarja Cronberg, the head of the European delegation, did not get up from her chair when Zarif entered the room.”
Another picture caption reads, “In July 2014, in an undiplomatic and unprofessional measure, Abbas Araghchi, a member of Iran’s negotiating team is seen taking pictures of John Kerry in the middle of the negotiations. Pictures that he later published in his social media channel.”
The article then goes on to write that “in the JCPOA, due to the Iranian team’s lack of mastery in regards of technical issues and as a result of not following diplomatic principles, the most important objective of the Iranian team which was the complete revocation of sanctions did not happen.”
“In other words, not only did sanctions not get revoked, acts such as CAATSA and ISA (the mother of all sanctions) were put into play,” Tasnim wrote.
