WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- The European Union’s diplomatic chief Josep Borrell says he is “ready” to meet Iranian leaders in Brussels as part of efforts to remove U.S. sanctions on Tehran in order to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
Wrapping up a trip to Washington, Borrell also brushed aside the notion of a “Plan B,” or a possible military option as suggested this week by the United States and the occupying regime of Israel, should the talks fail.
“I know that the Iranians want to have some kind of previous talks with me as coordinator and with some members of the board of the JCPOA,” Borrell told reporters, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the deal is formally known.
“I’m ready, I’m ready to do that,” said Borrell. “But time is pressing.”
EU envoy Enrique Mora was in Tehran Thursday to press for a firm date for resuming talks on the removal of the sanctions, which have stalled since June.
Tehran said following the discussions that Iran and the EU had agreed to hold further dialogue in Brussels within days.
“I cannot tell you a precise date. I am ready to receive them, if needed,” said Borrell, who met a day earlier with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with Iran on the agenda.
“I don’t say this is absolutely needed but you know I have to have a certain strategic patience on this issue, because we cannot afford to fail,” he added.
The United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain reached the JCPOA agreement with Iran on its nuclear program in 2015.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump pulled America out of the deal in 2018, reinstating sanctions that Washington had lifted as part of the agreement.
After a year of exercising “strategic patience”, Tehran began to reduce observing its obligations after the other parties failed to protect the Islamic Republic against the sanctions as per the nuclear deal.
Current U.S. President Joe Biden has said he is ready to return

to the agreement if the Islamic Republic renews those commitments, but as the side which was the first to breach the nuclear agreement, he has refused to remove the sanctions and shown an inclination to keep the key elements of the sanctions in place as a pressure tool.
Borrell said he understood that the new government in Tehran “requires time to study the file, to instruct the negotiation, but this time has been already passed. It’s time to go back to the negotiation table.”
Blinken told reporters he hoped for the success of talks with Iran but warned that “the runway that we have left to do that is getting shorter and shorter”.
But Borrell gave short shrift to suggestions of an alternative to the 2015 deal.
“I don’t want to think about Plan Bs, because none of the Plan Bs that I could imagine would be a good one,” he said.