{"id":339980,"date":"2025-08-13T02:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/339980\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T02:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:06:10","slug":"france-germany-and-uk-willing-to-reimpose-sanctions-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/339980\/","title":{"rendered":"France, Germany and UK willing to reimpose sanctions on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

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France, Germany and the UK have told the UN they are prepared to trigger the reimposition of sanctions on Iran unless it resumes negotiations with the international community over its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

The foreign ministers of the three countries \u2014 known collectively as the E3 \u2014 wrote to the UN on Tuesday to raise the spectre of \u201csnapback\u201d sanctions unless Iran takes action. They said they had offered Iran<\/a> an extension to avoid the automatic reimposition of sanctions later this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made it clear that if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic solution before the end of August 2025, or does not seize the opportunity of an extension, E3 are prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism,\u201d the ministers said in the letter, which was obtained by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

The letter to UN secretary-general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres and the UN Security Council was signed by French foreign minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, German foreign minister Johann Wadephul, and UK foreign minister David Lammy. It comes two months after the US and Israel struck nuclear sites in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Iranian mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter.<\/p>\n

During Donald Trump\u2019s first term, the US president in 2018 withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal<\/a> that his predecessor Barack Obama had concluded with Tehran and several world powers. The deal, which still stands, had put significant limits on the country\u2019s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UN sanctions are set to expire on October 18 unless one of the remaining parties \u2014 the UK, Germany, France, Russia and China \u2014 triggers the \u201csnapback\u201d mechanism. <\/p>\n

The E3 told Iran at talks in Turkey last month that they could extend the end of August snapback deadline if Tehran agreed to resume talks with the US and co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency before September.<\/p>\n

One western diplomat said the talks had been \u201cdifficult\u201d.\u00a0On Tuesday, the E3 said their offer of an extension \u201cremained unanswered by Iran\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The ministers said a \u201climited extension\u201d would provide more time for talks aimed at concluding a new nuclear agreement, while maintaining the ability to reimpose sanctions to prevent nuclear proliferation.<\/p>\n

Following the Istanbul meeting in July, Iran\u2019s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told the FT that the E3 had no \u201clegal or moral grounds\u201d to trigger the snapback. He warned that Iran\u00a0would exclude\u00a0the European powers from future nuclear talks if they went\u00a0through with the process.<\/p>\n

Araghchi accused the E3 of failing to meet their deal commitments and said the snapback mechanism was \u201cnot that important anymore\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,\u201d Araghchi said. \u201cIf they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In their letter, the E3 ministers said they were \u201cclearly and unambiguously\u201d legally justified in reimposing sanctions on Iran because since 2019 Tehran had \u201cwilfully\u201d departed from its commitments under the deal.<\/p>\n

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Tehran has said it remains open to talks with the Trump administration. But its stance hardened after Israel\u2019s assault and 48 hours before Tehran was to hold a sixth round of indirect negotiations with the US.<\/p>\n

Araghchi has said Iran wants assurances from the US that it would not be attacked during future talks, and wants \u201cconfidence building measures\u201d, including the US agreeing to compensate Iran for war damages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran announced in June that it was suspending co-operation with the IAEA, which has had inspectors in the country, following the Islamic republic\u2019s 12-day war with Isreal. A senior IAEA official met with Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday, but the UN nuclear watchdog has not commented on the trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-339980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115019014735120285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}