France, Germany, and the UK are threatening to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic unless it agrees to a deal in August
Iran, France, Germany, and the UK have agreed to resume talks regarding Tehran’s nuclear program next week, Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an anonymous source.
The time and location are still under negotiation, but the talks are expected to take place at the level of deputy foreign ministers from Iran and the three European countries, according to the agency.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned last week that the three European countries – known collectively as the E3 – would reactivate UN sanctions on Iran unless a nuclear deal is reached by the end of next month.
“France and its partners are… justified in reapplying global embargoes on weapons, banks, and nuclear equipment that were lifted 10 years ago,” he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. He added that this would be done “by the end of August at the latest.”
The E3 have the ability to use a ‘snapback’ mechanism to reinstate sanctions lifted from Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, in exchange for the curtailment of the country’s nuclear program.
The original guarantors of the agreement were the E3 countries, Russia, China, the US, and EU. However, during his first term in office, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has urged the E3 states and the EU to “act responsibly” and stop using threats, arguing that they have “no moral or legal basis” for using the snapback mechanism.
“It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal – coordinated by the EU in 2015 – not Iran,” he said in a Telegram post on Friday. “It was the US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead.”
US-Iran nuclear talks brokered by Oman collapsed last month shortly after Israel attacked Iran on June 13, claiming it was preempting the development of a nuclear bomb – an accusation that the Islamic Republic has denied. The US joined the conflict on June 22 and bombed three major Iranian nuclear facilities.
