Geneva, European diplomacy tries to save the Iran nuclear deal

Brussels – Diplomacy is beginning to move, albeit timidly, to try to resolve the Middle East crisis. Exactly one week after the start of the Israeli aggression against Iran, the foreign ministers of Paris, Berlin, London and Tehran are meeting in Geneva together with the EU High Representative to try to keep the negotiating track open. In the meantime, the USA is stalling before coming to the side of the Jewish state, while Russia is trying (at least in words) to set limits on escalation.

Exactly one week after the beginning of the unleashed war by Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, the UK and Iran—Jean-Noël Barrot, Johann Wadephul, David Lammy and Abbas Araghchi—met today (20 June) in Geneva, also in the presence of the head of the twelve-star diplomacy, Kaja Kallas.

The meeting, currently taking place at the headquarters of the German representation at the United Nations, aims to establish a formal negotiating channel to provide a political response to the escalating crisis in the Middle East. No one expects any dramatic breakthrough from the talks. Still, it is certainly encouraging to see the multilateral diplomacy trying to create space for itself and keep the dialogue going while bombs continue to fall on both sides.

We, Europeans, are engaging in dialogue with Iran to de-escalate the situation.

The only possible way forward is dialogue. pic.twitter.com/JjRA6E1ZV3

– Jean-Noël Barrot (@jnbarrot) June 20, 2025

For now, this is as far as it goes. It is Araghchi himself, moreover, who reiterates that Tehran will not agree to negotiate with Washington as long as the Jewish state continues its operations, branding them as a ‘betrayal’ of the ongoing diplomatic process between Iran and the United States.

The Europeans are trying amidst a thousand difficulties to restart the negotiations on the track, which seemed dead, of the Joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), the historic 2015 agreement entered into by the US and Iran with the mediation of France, Germany and the UK (the so-called E3 format) plus the European Union, Russia and China. In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the agreement: from that moment, the negotiations entered a prolonged standoff, from which the tycoon was trying to get out before the Israeli attack.

The chancelleries of the Old Continent
are thus trying to break away and define their own position, autonomous from the White House, after years of toeing Uncle Sam’s line. But Iran is not an easy customer for anyone, and in any case, the ayatollahs perceive the Europeans as too close to the Jewish state.

It is hard to dispute this last point, considering the effort the Twenty-Seven are making to renegotiate the Association Agreement with Tel Aviv, not to mention the sanctions against the most extremist members of the Israeli government or, even, the arrest of Netanyahu in compliance with the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

After all, the official position in Brussels remains the same: the Jewish state has the right to defend itself—albeit within the limits of international law, as Kallas herself has recently admitted after seven months in office—and Iran can in no way get its hands on the atomic weapon.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Trump has not yet decided whether to go to war alongside his long-standing ally and says he wants to delay the issue for a couple of weeks. On the one hand, the tycoon would be waiting to see if the Geneva one is a bluff, claiming he wants to leave room for the negotiating track. On the other, he doesn’t want to risk losing out on the most extremist wing of the Maga people, fiercely opposed to any military intervention abroad.

For the time being, the Pentagon has begun moving its assets to the Indian Ocean, obtaining permission from London to use Her Majesty’s military bases in the event of having to deploy the B-2 Spirit bombers, the only ones capable of dropping bunker buster bombs to strike the underground enrichment plants in Fordo, protected by the mountains south of Tehran.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, points to its red line. If Israel proceeds to assassinate the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei (as suggested by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, only to be contradicted within hours by Head of State Isaac Herzog), warns Vladimir Putin, the “Pandora’s Box” will be opened and the situation will spiral out of control. The tsar, at least according to the latest media rumours, would have presented to the Israeli and Iranian leaderships alternative proposals to those under discussion in Geneva for a negotiated solution to the crisis.

On paper, Russia is one of Iran’s closest allies, from which it buys the notorious Shahed suicide drones with which it attacks Ukraine on a daily basis. But several observers question Moscow’s real intention, notwithstanding its concrete capabilities, to come to the aid of the Ayatollahs should the situation deteriorate further.

It is not necessarily the case, for example, that defending the Shia ally is worth more than maintaining smooth relations with Tel Aviv, just as it would be problematic for Putin to antagonise the US president at a time when he is proving particularly lenient towards the Federation.