Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks with European Powers Amid Sanctions Threat
Iran has agreed to resume nuclear negotiations with France, Germany, and the UK, according to Tasnim News Agency, with the talks expected to take place at the deputy foreign minister level. However, the E3 bloc has warned that sanctions will be reimposed by the end of August unless a deal is reached. The negotiations come amid tensions over the previous US withdrawal from the 2015 JCPOA agreement and ongoing disputes over the snapback mechanism.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot emphasized that the E3 countries have the legal justification to reinstate sanctions lifted under the JCPOA, unless a nuclear deal is reached by the end of August. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the E3 states of lacking moral and legal grounds to exercise the snapback mechanism, citing the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 agreement as the root of the current stalemate. The negotiations follow the collapse of US-Iran nuclear talks brokered by Oman, which ended shortly after Israel’s attack on Iran in June, and subsequent US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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.