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Europe lacks strategy to break snapback 'deadlock': Russia envoy

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 23 August 2025 5:02 PM

A senior Russian diplomat says the European troika—Britain, France, and Germany—lack a clear strategy to break the "deadlock" they are poised to create if they follow through on their threat to invoke the "snapback" mechanism against Iran.

Russia's permanent envoy to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, made the remarks in a post on his X account on Saturday.

He proposed to put aside legal and procedural issues which definitely do not give the E3 the right to trigger the snapback mechanism and to address the issue from a purely political viewpoint.

The Russian diplomat asked whether the trio has an exit strategy and a vision of how to find a way out if the deadlock they are going to create.

"The answers to these questions seem to be negative," Ulyanov emphasized.

Snapback would bring into force six previous Iran-related Security Council resolutions adopted between 2006 and 2010. It would reinstate the expired UN arms embargo that barred countries from supplying, selling, or transferring most military equipment to Iran and prohibited Tehran from exporting any weapons.

It would also impose export controls, travel bans, asset freezes, and other restrictions on individuals, entities, and banks.

In a Friday phone conversation with the EU high representative for foreign and security policy and his British, French, and German counterparts, whose countries are the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that triggering the snapback would have consequences.

The top Iranian negotiator once again emphasized that the European countries lack the legal and moral authority to resort to the mechanism.

China's mission to the United Nations on Wednesday declared the country's firm opposition to threats by European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal to activate the snapback mechanism within the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

The mission at the UN headquarters in New York distributed an explanatory note to the Security Council, stating that the difficult situation in implementing the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 is not the result of Iran's actions but the disruption of the JCPOA's implementation by the United States and the three European countries.

China and Russia's backing plays a critical role in Iran's diplomatic efforts to counter the snapback threat. Both countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council and have veto power over resolutions, including those related to Iran's nuclear program.