Roundup: Western delegations visit Iran one after another to seek cooperation opportunities

After a landmark deal on Iran's nuclear program, Tehran has received various senior officials from the West, with the latest being French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Fabius arrived here Wednesday at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Mohammad-Javad Zarif on the first such visit in over a decade.

The agreement reached in Vienna benefits both Iran and the P5+1(Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany) group and serves as a major step in converting threats to opportunities, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a meeting with Fabius.

Iran and France should take advantage of the post-deal mood to improve their long-term relations, he said.

Fabius echoed the upbeat sentiment, saying, "Today is the launch of a new chapter in Tehran-Paris relations, and the prospect for the relations is quite positive following the nuclear deal."

France will do its best to implement the nuclear deal so that Iranians can benefit from the removal of sanctions, he added.

Iran and France agreed Wednesday to start discussing bilateral cooperation, and priorities for potential cooperation include fighting terrorism, campaigning against drugs and cooperating on environmental issues, Zarif said following a meeting with Fabius.

Both countries may also cooperate on nuclear programs for they had collaborated in this field before, he said.

Both countries may also further cooperate in economic sectors, such as energy, transportation and the auto industry, he added.

According to information reaching here from Paris earlier, France will send a delegation of 80 French companies to Tehran at the end of September.

A day before Fabius' arrival, Rouhani received here another guest from the European continent -- EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

During her meeting with Rouhani, Mogherini expressed the hope that the implementation of the nuclear deal would open a new chapter in the economic, trade and political relations between Iran and the EU, and would help expand Iran's relations with European countries.

Iran and the EU will start talks on cooperation in several areas, including the implementation of the nuclear agreement, energy, transportation, trade, environmental issues, human rights and campaigning against drugs, said Zarif

Unlike Fabius and Mogherini, whose visits to Iran have a political as well as an economic dimension, Sigmar Gabriel, minister for economic affairs and energy and vice chancellor of Germany, visited the country less than a week after the deal was struck for a purely economic agenda.

He arrived with a 60-strong business delegation, with many of the delegates being high-ranking executives from Siemens, Daimler and other famous German enterprises.

The Delegations of German Industry and Commerce estimated that the volume of German exports to Iran will quadruple in the next four years to 10 billion euros (about 10.9 billion U.S. dollars).

Other European countries, such as Spain, Britain and Sweden, are also making or planning to make their first moves to return to Iran, as revealed by the advertisements for European cars and luxury goods in the streets of Tehran. Endi