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The UK, France and Germany are preparing on Thursday to trigger a UN process to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, European officials have said, in a move that would heighten tensions between the west and Tehran.
The decision comes after foreign ministers of the three nations, known as the E3, told Iranian officials at a meeting in Istanbul last month that they were willing to extend a UN sanctions deadline if the Islamic republic restarted talks with the US and resumed co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency before the end of August.
Triggering the “snapback” process — a mechanism contained in the 2015 nuclear accord that Tehran signed with world powers — on Thursday would lead to the reimposition of UN sanctions after a 30-day countdown, unless there is a significant diplomatic breakthrough.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Wednesday that IAEA inspectors had arrived at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. But it is not clear whether Tehran will allow inspections of its enrichment sites, many of them badly damaged by Israeli and American attacks in June.
If IAEA inspectors were given full access to Iran’s nuclear sites, it should be able to produce a satisfactory assessment within 30 days, Grossi added.
But while Iranian officials have said they are willing to negotiate indirectly with the Trump administration, the Islamic republic’s stance has hardened since Israel’s 12-day war in June. The Israeli offensive came 48 hours before Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, was set to hold a sixth round of indirect talks with Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy.
Tehran has said it wants assurances from Washington that it will not be attacked if it resumes talks, and it wants the US to agree to compensate it for damage incurred during the bombing campaign.
The White House has shown little enthusiasm for resuming talks, with Trump bragging that the US and Israeli offensive successfully “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme, an assessment disputed by some American and other western intelligence officials.
But Grossi said Thursday that he had the “sense” from his conversations with Witkoff and other US officials that “they are open to dialogue”.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal affairs, wrote on X on Monday after a meeting with E3 and EU officials in Geneva that it was “time for the three European states and the UN Security Council to make the right choice and give diplomacy time and space”.
Under the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord between the Obama administration and Iran, signed alongside the European powers, Russia and China, Tehran agreed to strict limits on its nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
But after Trump unilaterally abandoned the deal during his first term in office — a decision opposed by the E3 — and imposed waves of sanctions on Iran, it expanded its programme and has been enriching uranium at levels close to weapons grade.
Araghchi told the Financial Times last month that the E3 had no “legal or moral grounds” to implement the snapback, and he warned that Iran would exclude the European powers from future nuclear talks if they went through with the process.
He also accused the E3 of failing to meet their own commitments under the 2015 deal and dismissed the UK, France and Germany’s importance following the US withdrawal from the deal.
“With the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,” Araghchi said. “If they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.”
Grossi said “there is still time” for a diplomatic solution.
“It is obvious that we need collectively to get to a better place, and that a sustainable, durable solution for this will have to be a diplomatic one to make it really a lasting thing — something that does not necessarily depend on military strikes to be operational,” he told reporters in Washington.
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