Iran detains 2 Europeans as negotiator arrives

TEHRAN: Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said on Wednesday it detained two Europeans as a European Union envoy visits the country over its stalled nuclear negotiations with world powers.

The announcement by the ministry, during the visit of EU envoy Enrique Mora, comes as Tehran already is threatening to execute an Iranian-swedish researcher imprisoned since 2016, and as another Iranian national faces a life sentence in Sweden.

Iran long has faced allegations it uses its arrests as a bargaining chip with the West.

Tehran denies that, though negotiations around its landmark 2015 nuclear deal saw Americans freed in a swap.

The ministry said in a statement that the two Europeans planned to turn routine demands by various social and professional groups into “chaos, social disorder and instability.”

It did not identify the nationality of those held. Sweden said Friday that one of its citizens travelling as a tourist has been detained in Iran, but it wasn’t clear if his case was connected to the Intelligence Ministry’s announcement.

The statement said the two are “professional expert” agents that were hired by a European country’s intelligence apparatus.

It said the ministry was pursuing them from “the moment of arrival” and that all their relations with the “illegal Council of Teachers League” were documented.

Iran has been facing regular protests by teachers over salary disputes.

Mora’s visit comes as the nuclear deal talks in Vienna have stalled.

The deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment for the liting of economic sanctions, appear deadlocked over an Iranian demand for America to delist the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.

Despite repeated Iranian claims that a separate deal would see billions of dollars in assets unfrozen and prisoners exchanged with America, the State Department has repeatedly said that no deal is imminent on either a prisoner swap or the nuclear deal.