Even as talks between Washington and Tehran over how to implement their 14-point memorandum of understanding remain mired in repeated cease-fire violations and recriminations, the diplomatic agenda has settled into the familiar territory of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, uranium enrichment, sanctions relief, regional de-escalation and nuclear verification mechanisms.
All of these issues matter.
Yet once again, the people of Iran risk becoming the missing party in negotiations about their own future.
While Europe is on the sidelines of the direct negotiations, it does have a say in the outcome thanks to the system of sanctions it has imposed on the Islamic Republic over the years. Unfortunately, several of Europe’s biggest countries – Germany, France, Italy and the UK – signalled they would support lifting the sanctions as part of a broader US-Iran peace deal before the talks even began.
The quiet ease with which Europe’s leading countries performed this about-face is outrageous in light of the Iranian regime’s dark record of persecuting, torturing and murdering its own people at home and abroad.
Europe routinely insists that human rights are not an optional add-on to foreign policy. Its own external agreements say as much, often treating respect for human rights and democratic principles as “essential elements” of the relationship.
Europe imposes sanctions over political repression in countries from Belarus to Myanmar. Its leaders regularly speak of democracy, civil society and the rules-based international order as strategic assets rather than moral luxuries.
Iran, however, is the glaring exception that proves the rule.
When discussions turn to Tehran, human rights concerns have a habit of migrating to the margins of the conversation. They become secondary issues to be addressed later, after the centrifuges are monitored, the inspectors are satisfied and the diplomatic framework is stabilised.
The logic is familiar. Nuclear negotiations are difficult enough already. Introducing domestic political issues risks overwhelming an already fragile process.
What is more, it is clear to everyone involved that the regime won’t change unless it is removed. That was clear again during a six-days long funeral ceremony as the new leaders and regime loyalists mourned the death of their deceased supreme leader, reciting familiar apocalyptic rhetoric about revenge and wiping the US and Israel off the face of the earth.
Strategic mistake
The regime’s intransigence notwithstanding, treating human rights as a separate file has not merely been a moral compromise; it has been a strategic mistake.
The Islamic Republic's domestic repression and its external behaviour are not separate phenomena. They are manifestations of the same clerical fundamentalist system. The EU acknowledged as much in February by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the paramilitary organisation that effectively controls the country, a terrorist organisation, a step the US took in 2019.
A government that arrests journalists, imprisons dissidents and cuts off internet access during protests does not suddenly become a predictable international partner once it sits across a negotiating table in Islamabad, Geneva or Doha. The same institutions that suppress domestic opposition also shape regional policy, support proxy groups and determine Tehran's approach to diplomacy abroad.
Ignoring one side of the equation does not make it disappear. Sanctions are far from a cure-all. Yet they can have significant impact – especially when properly enforced – as we witnessed earlier this year when growing economic pressures triggered protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar before engulfing the whole country.
European governments understand this principle perfectly well elsewhere.
No serious policymaker would argue that relations with Russia can be discussed independently of political repression inside Russia. European leaders routinely connect China's human rights record to broader questions about strategic trust and economic dependence. Human rights concerns are rightly viewed as indicators of the character and behaviour of a regime.
Why should Iran be treated differently?
The EU has every interest in preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and limiting Iran's ballistic missile program, especially after Tehran proved that its rockets have sufficient range to reach virtually any city in Europe.
But diplomacy does not require silence, much less capitulation.
European governments should be explicit that any long-term normalisation of relations with Tehran requires movement not only on uranium enrichment but also on fundamental freedoms and the other issues ignored in the MoU.
Concrete demands
The demands should be concrete. Europe should insist on an immediate halt to executions, especially those used to terrorise political opponents and protesters.
Specifically, Europe should call for the unconditional release of political prisoners, including figures such as Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi and reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, as well as the many lesser-known activists, students, lawyers, journalists and trade unionists whose names rarely make it into Western briefings.
It should demand an end to the use of lethal force against demonstrators and a commitment that Iran will not shut down the internet to isolate its own people during moments of unrest.
None of these demands are radical.
What’s more, they are precisely the demands that have been voiced repeatedly by Iranian protesters themselves, both inside the country and across the diaspora communities that have mobilised throughout Europe over recent years. Their message has been remarkably consistent: ‘do not negotiate over our future without us’.
That message deserves to be heard in Brussels, Berlin and Paris just as much as it is in Washington. Even if Europe is not directly involved in the talks, it should use the remaining influence it does have to stand up for Iranians.
That influence isn’t limited to sanctions. Iran’s regime craves acceptance by Europe. That is why it is essential for European leaders to use their bully pulpits to initiate a coordinated and sustained rhetorical campaign calling out Tehran for its atrocious record on human rights.
The argument that raising human rights concerns could jeopardise peace negotiations ultimately rests on a troubling assumption – that the freedoms of ordinary Iranians are somehow negotiable in the first place.
Europe would never accept such reasoning elsewhere.
Indeed, European leaders often argue that respect for human rights forms the foundation of lasting stability.
There is little reason to believe Iran represents an exception to that rule.
The US-Iran negotiations offer Europe an opportunity to demonstrate that Ursula von der Leyen’s recent pledge to “to always bring our values to the table” applies not only when it is politically convenient but also when it carries diplomatic costs.
And the costs would be real. Trump would be livid, the mullahs enraged.
If nothing else, Europe will have displayed some moral clarity. For if Europeans are willing to set aside human rights whenever they become inconvenient, then they are not values at all, but little more than empty talking points.
