Deputy FM to deliver Rouhani's message to Macron

The spokesman wrote in his Twitter account that Araghchi headed for Paris as Rouhani's special representative.

Earlier in a telephone conversation with Emmanuel Macron late on July 19, Rouhani described France's efforts to salvage the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as significant, saying that Iran and the EU should take balanced steps to keep the deal alive.

"Despite problems and obstructionism, we believe that both sides should seize the remaining opportunity and experts should find suitable ways to save the deal," he said.

Rouhani also called on the EU states to boost efforts to ensure Iran's interests and establish ceasefire in the US economic war.

Slamming tightening of sanctions by the US as obstacles in the way of JCPOA, he said that there are some in the US who do not want to save JCPOA.

Describing exchanges through The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) simultaneous with arrival of oil sales money as significant, he said that passage of time and losing the opportunities will make Iran to enforce third stage of scaling down commitments.

Macron, for his part, said that unfortunately, there are extremists who are blocking efforts to achieve peace and US announcement to tighten sanctions against Iran is among those actions.

Noting that Europe has accelerated actions to put INSTEX into operation, he said that sanctions imposed by the US have challenged most the countries' trade with Iran.

During the phone conversation, both sides stressed the need for continued efforts to maintain the deal.

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