• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Iran urges E3 to return to diplomacy, warns the alternative 'not pretty'

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 07 September 2025 2:24 PM

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Britain, France, and Germany—European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal—have committed a "grave miscalculation" by invoking the snapback of sanctions against Iran, urging the E3 to seize this "fleeting window" of opportunity before it is too late.

"As I have cautioned my E3 counterparts, their gambit will not achieve the result they seek. On the contrary, it will only further sideline them by eliminating it from future diplomacy, with broad negative consequences for all of Europe in terms of its global credibility and standing," Araghchi wrote in an article published by The Guardian on Sunday.

The snapback refers to the automatic reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran. It is a mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers.

On August 29, France, Germany, and Britain (E3) triggered the countdown for the automatic return of UN sanctions, including a comprehensive arms embargo, major banking and shipping restrictions on Iran.

The move was immediately welcomed in the United States, where US President Donald Trump had torn up the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018 and reinstated all sanctions.

Araghchi urged the E3 to seize the opportunity before the sanctions are snapped back on Iran if they want to resolve the nuclear issue with Iran diplomatically. "Europe is wrong to follow Donald Trump's strategy. We are open to diplomacy and a new deal over our nuclear programme, but sanctions must go."

The foreign minister urged the E3 to keep in mind the sequence of events that led Iran to take lawful remedial measures under the nuclear deal, including by ramping up its enrichment capacity.

"The three countries want the world to forget that it was the US, and not Iran, that unilaterally ended participation in ... JCOPA," he wrote. "The E3 are additionally omitting how they failed to uphold their part of the bargain, not to mention their outrageous welcoming of the bombing of Iran in June."

Returning the UN sanctions on Iran is "a grave miscalculation that is bound to backfire," Araghchi asserted.

The foreign minister pointed out that the Europeans had failed to uphold their end of the bargain after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed the sanctions.

"European leaders insisted that their 'strategic autonomy' would ensure continuation of trade with Iran and that the dividends pledged to my people, including the sale of oil and gas along with effective banking transactions, would follow. None of it materialized," he wrote.

Araghchi argued that E3 effectively forfeited its participation in the JPCOA when it sided with the US in calling for Iran to halt all enrichment activities, a cornerstone of the JCPOA.

"It does not make any sense for the E3 to claim participation in a deal pillared on uranium enrichment in Iran while demanding that Iran must disavow those very capabilities," he said. "Openly cheerleading illegal military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities protected by international law - as Germany's chancellor has done - does not constitute 'participation'."