Abstract:
Sanctions imposed on Iran to curb Iran's nuclear program proved to be a genuine threat to energy security of major oil importers from Iran, including Spain. With the onset of Iran nuclear issue, Spain could use different policies towards Iran, including leadership role, passive role or acting as a facilitator of the EU foreign policy. Thus, the main question of this research is: What role did Spain play in achieving the JCPOA within the framework of the European Union? The hypothesis of the research states that Spain was taking steps drawing upon its soft power sources to act as a facilitator of the EU foreign policy towards Iran and to achieve the JCPOA. The theoretical framework used is Nye’s theory of soft power. The qualitative research method was the Fairclough’s 3D Model was adopted and the data is drawn from documentary method. The results indicate that Spain, by using soft power components, acted both to advance the EU's strategy towards Iran and to increase its influence in the EU. In its approach towards Iran, Spain considered the issue of improving its situation within the decision-making structure of the European Union. various discourses such as the dialogue of the alliance of civilizations and closeness and friendship during the Zapatero era, trust-building discourse, the regional role of Iran, energy diplomacy and the legal discourse of the Rajoy era all were in the direction of creating and using soft power in order to change the stance in Iran and the European Union.
Machine summary:
Spain and Iran's Nuclear Negotiations: Limitations and the Soft Power Approach 9 In the article "Diplomatic Negotiations and the Iran Nuclear Agreement - Between Realist and Liberal Paradigms," the author examines the achievement of the JCPOA from the perspective of European countries, in which Germany, for the first time since World War II, succeeded in shaping global policy through nuclear negotiations in these talks, while on the other hand, the French, given the important interests they held in Lebanon and Syria, viewed the nuclear agreement as an effort to return to playing a role in the Middle East (Pop .
(2020) Pedro Sanchez, the current Prime Minister of Spain, in an article titled "Foreign Policy Committed to Spain"1, by referring to the importance of Spain's role-playing in various regions of the world including the Middle East, emphasizes the importance of Spain being within the decision-making center of the European Union and stresses this country's active presence in international forums and its efforts to resolve global and international crises, including the Iranian nuclear program (Sanchez, 2019).
On the other hand, given Spain's active presence in the Iraq war and the disagreement in this regard with France and Germany, as well as the traditional body of Spanish foreign policy that pursued a policy of closeness to Arab countries, Aznar used the opportunity of closeness to Iran and the attempt to play a role in the dialogue of civilizations to use this opportunity to increase his soft power by presenting a peaceful face of himself in Europe.
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