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France Stresses Need for Iran to Respect Nuclear Accord

Associated Press

   PARIS - French authorities in a meeting Tuesday with an Iranian envoy
   stressed the need for Tehran to quickly respect the 2015 nuclear accord
   it has breached and "make the needed gestures" to deescalate mounting
   tensions in the Persian Gulf region.

   A statement by the French Foreign Ministry said Seyed Abbas Araghchi
   gave a message to President Emmanuel Macron from Iranian leader Hassen
   Rouhani. Macron and Rouhani spoke last Thursday.

   Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who met with Araghchi, is working
   with European partners on an observation mission to ensure maritime
   security in the Gulf, where tensions have mounted after Iran's seizure
   last Friday of a U.K.-flagged oil tanker.

   Le Drian made no mention of a Europe-led "maritime protection mission"
   announced a day earlier by his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt,
   offering instead what seems to be a softer version.

   France is working "at this moment on a European initiative" with
   Britain and Germany, he told lawmakers, without elaborating. "This
   vision is the opposite of the American initiative, which is ... maximum
   pressure" against Iran.

   Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Von der Muhll said at a briefing
   that the initiative involves "appropriate means of surveillance" aimed
   at "increased understanding of the situation at sea" to facilitate
   traffic in a waterway that is critical to the global economy.

   Iran's seizure Friday of British oil tanker Steno Impero and its
   23-member crew in the Strait of Hormuz aggravated tensions that were
   already mounting with Iran's breaching of a 2015 Iran nuclear accord
   among world powers.

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