Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi opened a four-capital European tour in Brussels on Thursday, pressing the European Union to begin lifting sanctions imposed during the six-week war with Israel as the bloc’s foreign ministers circulated a draft framework that would tie any easing to verifiable Iranian steps on its remaining nuclear infrastructure and on regional armed groups aligned with Tehran.

Araghchi, whose visit to Brussels was followed by stops planned in Berlin, Paris and Rome through the weekend, met for nearly three hours with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and a contact group of foreign ministers from Germany, France and Italy at the Europa building. It was the most senior Iranian visit to an EU institution since the conflict began in early March, and the first since the Apr. 15 ceasefire took effect.

In a joint appearance after the meeting, Kallas described the talks as “serious and unsentimental,” and said the bloc was prepared to consider what she called “a calibrated unwinding” of measures taken during the war, including the freezing of Iranian central bank assets held in European jurisdictions and the suspension of European technical cooperation on civilian aviation safety. She made clear, however, that no relief would precede agreement on a verification regime and on the disposition of Iran’s surviving enrichment capacity.

“We will not pretend the last six weeks did not happen,” Kallas said. “We will also not pretend that a sanctions architecture designed for a war can be maintained unchanged after a ceasefire. The question before us is sequence, not principle.”

Araghchi, speaking in English, said Iran had “fulfilled its obligations under the Islamabad framework” and was entitled to expect “reciprocity, not lectures.” He confirmed that Tehran was prepared to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to resume inspections at three sites where access had been suspended since March, beginning with the partially damaged enrichment facility at Natanz, but said the timing would depend on what he called “the seriousness of the European response.”

The draft EU framework, portions of which were described to MetaCurrents by two European diplomats with knowledge of the text, contemplates a three-phase unwinding over roughly nine months. The first phase, which could begin within weeks, would release approximately 6 billion euros in Iranian central bank reserves held in Belgium and Luxembourg and would lift sanctions on Iran Air and on the import of medical and food-related goods. The second phase, contingent on the IAEA’s certification of Iran’s declared centrifuge inventory, would unfreeze a further 11 billion euros and restore correspondent banking ties for a designated set of Iranian banks. The third phase, tied to a broader regional understanding being negotiated through the parallel Gulf-led track in Muscat and Doha, would lift the most extensive measures, including those on petrochemical exports.

The plan, the diplomats said, would be presented to the EU’s full Foreign Affairs Council on Monday for political endorsement but would require unanimous backing of all 27 member states before it could begin to take effect. Hungary, which has been a consistent skeptic of further sanctions on Russia and which has signaled openness to faster Iranian engagement, is expected to support the framework; the Baltic states and the Netherlands have privately questioned its pace.

“The challenge for Europe is that it wants to lead on this and it cannot lead alone,” said Marc Levaux, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who has advised three member-state delegations on Iran policy. “Washington has shifted from directive to ambivalent, the Gulf is running its own track, and Israel is internally consumed. Brussels has the political space it lacked in March. The question is whether it has the speed.”

The Trump administration, whose own sanctions architecture is more extensive and more politically charged than the European measures, has not signaled when or whether it intends to follow any European easing. Deputy Secretary of State Brian Whitford, asked about the Araghchi tour during a briefing in Washington, said the United States “would not stand in the way of allied diplomacy” but cautioned that “the bar for U.S. relief is high and it has not yet been cleared.” A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was “watching the European process closely” and would weigh any movement in the context of the next round of Muscat talks scheduled for early May.

Israeli reaction to the Brussels meeting was muted but skeptical. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, said Israel “respects the right of every government to set its own policy” but warned that “premature relief will be read in Tehran as a reward for war.” Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to engage more constructively with the post-ceasefire diplomacy, said the European framework was “imperfect but real” and that Israeli silence on its substance was “a missed opportunity.”

In Tehran, the official IRNA news agency carried Araghchi’s departure remarks prominently and described the European tour as “the beginning of the post-pressure phase.” Hard-line outlets were more reserved; the daily Kayhan, in an editorial Thursday morning, warned against “trading verifiable concessions for unverifiable promises” and urged the foreign minister to insist on the release of frozen assets before agreeing to any new inspection regime.

Markets gave the day a cautiously constructive read. Brent crude eased to $94.30 a barrel in late afternoon trading in London, down from $96 at the start of the week. The Tehran Stock Exchange’s main index closed up 2.1 percent on news of the Brussels meeting, its third consecutive session of gains. “The relief curve is being drawn,” said Anika Petrović, a senior emerging-markets strategist at Société Générale. “It is not yet being delivered. But the market is now pricing in a path, and that itself is new.”

Araghchi was scheduled to fly to Berlin on Friday morning for meetings with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, followed by stops in Paris on Saturday and Rome on Monday. EU officials said a follow-on session at the ministerial level was likely before the end of May, with the venue still under discussion.