Foreign Minister S Jaishankar To Visit Iran On Dec 22, Likely To Call On Hassan Rouhani

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is slated to embark on a two-day visit to Iran on December 22 to co-chair the 19th Joint Commission Meeting with his Iranian counterpart Javed Zarif. The Foreign Minister is also expected to call on the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. Giving impetus to partnership amid fast changing geopolitics and regional dynamics is likely to be on agenda of talks when both leaders sit for the Joint Commission Meeting.

During the visit, External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is expected to call on the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. https://t.co/WcATtALV75

— ANI (@ANI) December 21, 2019

The visit comes in the wake of S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's US visit for two-plus-two ministerial level talks with their American counterparts and their meeting with US President Donald Trump.

The United States and Iran are engaged in a standoff over latter's nuclear programme and Washington's 'unilaterlal' decision of doing away with the Obama-era agreement.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to defuse the standoff between Iran and the United States over the Iranian nuclear programme. Trump, on the other hand, had accused France’s President Emmanuel Macron of getting in the way of US policy and sending “mixed signals” to Tehran.

Last year in November, the Trump administration had granted a six-month waiver to India, China, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea to continue importing oil from Iran.

However, in the wake of American waiver refusal and threats of secondary sanctions, India had stopped purchasing Iranian oil from May. Iran supplied 10 per cent of India's oil needs and the country has number of Iran specific refineries.