Europe, Iran hold urgent nuclear talks ahead of sanctions deadline
text_fields
Vienna: Representatives from Britain, France and Germany, the so-called E3 nations, will meet Iranian officials in Geneva on Tuesday for last-minute talks as the deadline approaches for Europe to reimpose sanctions on Tehran by triggering the “snapback” mechanism.
The meeting was announced on Monday by the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry and follows a previous round of discussions between European and Iranian negotiators in Istanbul on July 25.
The talks come amid growing European concern over Iran’s nuclear programme, which had been enriching uranium close to weapons-grade levels before the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June, during which Tehran’s atomic sites were bombed. Since then, Iran has cut off all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), leaving the international community in the dark about the programme’s current status and the stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, just a short, technical step away from the weapons-grade level of 90%.
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is peaceful, yet it remains the only non-nuclear-armed nation enriching uranium at such high levels. The United States, the IAEA, and other observers assert that Iran operated a nuclear weapons programme until 2003.
Earlier this year, the Europeans agreed with Washington to set an end-of-August deadline for invoking the snapback mechanism if Iran failed to meet key conditions: resuming negotiations with the US over its nuclear programme, restoring access for UN inspectors to nuclear sites, and providing an account of more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
The snapback provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal allows any party to swiftly reimpose pre-deal sanctions if Iran is deemed non-compliant. This mechanism bypasses the possibility of a veto from permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia and China.
Tehran argues, however, that the Europeans lack legal grounds to reimpose UN sanctions, claiming that the parties themselves failed to uphold their obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal after the US withdrawal in 2018, particularly in ensuring Iran received the promised economic benefits.
The landmark 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers sought to prevent Tehran from developing atomic weapons by restricting its nuclear activities. Under the deal, Iran was permitted to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 per cent purity, maintain a stockpile capped at 300 kilograms, and use only basic IR-1 centrifuges, machines that spin uranium gas at high speeds for enrichment. In exchange, international sanctions were lifted, with UN inspectors tasked with monitoring compliance.
With PTI inputs
