What is the Purpose of European Parliamentary Delegations' Visits to Iran?

In a short span, two parliamentary delegations from Europe have traveled to Tehran. First, a five-member European parliamentary delegation led by Elmar Brok, the head of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, and then a parliamentary delegation from the French Senate led by Daniel Reiner, the vice president of the Senate's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Radio Farda interviewed Mehran Barati, an analyst of Iranian affairs in Germany, to ask what the main goal of these European delegations' visits to Tehran is. Mehran Barati: These types of visits have occurred in the past. During Ahmadinejad's presidency, a European parliamentary delegation visited Iran. But now the conditions are different. I think the delegations currently going to Iran aim primarily to help bring the nuclear agreement to fruition and reintegrate Iran into the global community. How much do these European delegations' visits relate to lifting sanctions and possibly concluding new economic contracts and facilitating the path for these contracts? Certainly, this is the case. We know that there is more effort in the European Parliament to reach an agreement between the P5+1 countries and the Islamic Republic. This is not always the case among government members. For example, the French government or the French foreign minister is much stricter. However, European Union representatives have a much broader political view beyond immediate interests and believe that even if the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program are not resolved to the West's satisfaction, this issue should be postponed, and it is likely to be resolved step by step in six months to a year. But they did not condition the main agreement on that. I think this is a very important issue. Now, the European Parliament and other countries likely want to assist Mr. Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, and Mr. Rouhani's government, and they are aware that the majority of the parliament is acting against the current government's steps. The European Union and European countries, separately, have shown that they place great importance on human rights discussions and establishing relations with Iran. They have always emphasized the expansion of relations. In this recent visit of the European parliamentary delegation, there was an incident where the delegation was prevented from meeting with journalists, which caused dissatisfaction among them. Will the European parliamentary delegation continue to be sensitive to this issue in these recent meetings? Yes, it certainly will. However, in the previous visit of parliamentary representatives to Iran, during a meeting with the mothers and relatives of those imprisoned, detained, or tortured, the government's opponents felt that the government had failed to show any ability to prevent negative propaganda against the Islamic Republic. Since then, the issue of managed visits and managed dialogues has been on the agenda. I currently think that what the European Parliament representatives plan regarding human rights issues is to manage this issue. Well, when Mr. Javad Larijani in the judiciary wants to manage such human rights issues, the outcome is already known. But I think the European Parliament representatives have also decided to engage in activities aimed at meeting with human rights activists outside the framework of the security forces' management.