Unprecedented Step: EU’s Mora Detained at Frankfurt Airport on Way from Tehran

By Staff, Agencies 

The European Union's envoy to Iran talks, Enrique Mora, revealed that he was "retained" by German police at Frankfurt airport on his way back from Tehran.

"Retained by the German police at the Frankfurt airport on my way to Brussels, back from Teheran. Not a single explanation," Mora tweeted on Friday.

"An EU official on an official mission holding a Spanish diplomatic passport. Took out my passport and my phones," he said.

A short time later he added: "Now released along with my two colleagues, the EU Ambassador to UN Vienna and the head of the EEAS Iran task force."

The EEAS is the European External Action Service, the EU equivalent of a foreign ministry, with its own diplomats.

"We were kept separated. Refusal to give any explanation for what seems a violation of the Vienna Convention," Mora complained.

An EU spokesman tried to play down the incident, which he said was "solved quickly" but which Mora had declared "seems a violation of the Vienna Convention" on diplomatic protection.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations grants legal privileges to diplomats and diplomatic missions, and is one of the treaties that underpins all international relations.

Asked about the incident, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell refused to explain the reasons for the detention, only saying "the issue is over, he took the plane and is travelling in accordance with his mission."

Mora had been in Tehran on Wednesday for talks with Iran's chief negotiator on efforts to salvage a nuclear deal which has been on life support since the US withdrawal in 2018 and its subsequent coercive measures against the Islamic Republic.

Mora's detention at Frankfurt airport reveals the extent to which the West's policy has gone awry.