Iranian diplomat visits UK amid growing pressure over jailed activist
The Iranian negotiator's meetings were expected to be overshadowed by UK demands for the release of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose husband is on a hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office headquarters in London.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, was in London to meet with British officials ahead of a new round of talks on the revival of the Iran nuclear deal slated for Nov. 29 in Vienna.
The visit came as part of a renewed diplomatic push by the Islamic Republic aimed at a restored accord that could ideally see US sanctions lifted and reinject life into Iran's choking economy.
UK officials have voiced support for the revival of the deal, which the United States departed from in 2018. To that end, London has urged Tehran to comply with the restrictions the original agreement placed on the Iranian nuclear program. The same has been raised by the other European signatories, France and Germany, which were destinations in Bagheri's European tour earlier this week.
While little has been reported from the Iranian negotiator's meetings in Berlin and Paris, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted about his envoy's "successful talks" and expressed Iran's readiness for a "good agreement" in Vienna. Despite those positive signals, the government under hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has rejected a demand from the Western sides to pick up the new negotiations from where all the parties left off back in June when the administration of moderate former President Hassan Rouhani was representing the Islamic Republic.
