German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran on Monday, in a bid to save the Iran nuclear deal as the country’s July deadline for non-observance looms.
Maas hopes to discuss practical measures to encourage Iran to remain in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.
US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, re-imposing sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded in May 2019 by announcing it would partially withdraw from the deal, restarting some of its nuclear activity until European JCPOA signatories could help ease the sanctions.
The Iranian government has set a July 7 deadline for putting its partial withdrawal from the agreement into action.