EU’s post-deal review draws positive response from Iran

A recently published review by the EU entitled “An EU Strategy for relations with Iran after the nuclear deal” has drawn positive response from Tehran.

The European Union on October 7 published a document in which it delineated the prospect for relations with the post-sanctions Iran, emphasizing “what the EU and Iran need is a strategic and structured dialogue.”

The document was released by the European Parliament nearly fifteen months after Iran and key international players, including the European Union, struck a historic deal over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Tehran’s response is remarkable in that it has focused on the issue of human rights, on which Iran formerly had said would not consider cooperation with the West. The Islamic Republic used to say that with the nuclear deal enough was enough, because there would be no end to the West’s expectations of Iran, ranging from human rights issues to missile program and regional security developments.
However, one day after the EU document was published, Iran’s Human Rights chief Mohammad Javad Larijani said Iran can drastically reduce the number of death penalties issued by the country’s judiciary system in short notice.

“Death verdicts should be limited to drug ringleaders. Doing so, the number of death penalties will quickly decrease. This is under discussion and I think in six to seven months we will reach the primary results in our revision,” he told Brazil’s O Estadao daily.

Larijani, however, peppered his statement by saying that the West should not “impose its lifestyle on the Iranian nation.”

“We do not think that universality provides any ground for imposing lifestyles, cultures, or civilizations. Americans, Germans, or the French cannot claim that lifestyle is exactly what they have in their countries.”

He went on to assert that Iran shares 800 kilometers of border with Afghanistan, the world’s repository of opium, and that Tehran, as the biggest drugs fighter, expects more help from Western countries to brace its anti-drug campaign.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on the same day said the country will hold human rights talks with the European Union in the near future.

Reacting to the EU review, the Iranian diplomat said although the document contains “some grain of truth”, some parts of it are “unreal and affected by the campaigns of anti-Iran circles”.

“In a situation when human rights talks are about to begin between Iran and the EU, such statements are non-constructive and therefore questionable. They not only do not help at all the improvement of human rights talks, but also create ground for assumptions that what is the case is intervention in our country’s internal affairs.”

However open and welcoming, Tehran’s position entails some fallacy in that it restricts human rights talks to the sphere of drugs.

Official reports say some 90 percent of death penalties in Iran are drugs-related. Knowing this, Tehran is eying a drastic reduction of its overall death penalties by easing big on drugs. This way, it will provide itself with a good record of human rights status improvement and buy considerable negotiation power against the West.

However, no expectation of a decline in death sentences of other natures than drugs is raised from the recent statements.