France’s President Emmanuel Macron said major European nations will likely reimpose international sanctions on Iran by the end of the month.
When asked in an interview on Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday if the so-called “snapback” sanctions would be triggered, Macron responded in the affirmative, claiming that Iran’s efforts to avoid them were “not serious”.
In late August, France, Germany and the United Kingdom – known as the E3 – initiated a 30-day process to reimpose sanctions in the absence of a negotiated deal on the Iranian nuclear programme.
Iran has called the E3’s decision “unjustified, illegal and lacking any legal basis”.
The three European powers accuse Iran of breaching the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Under the deal, which they all signed, together with the United States, China, Russia and the European Union, Tehran agreed to scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
However, in 2018, during his first term in office, US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Tensions over Tehran’s perceived nuclear weapons ambitions escalated between the US, Iran, and Israel earlier this summer. This led to the 12-day Israeli war on Iran in June, which saw the US strike three Iranian nuclear sites.
The three European nations, the continent’s largest economies, initially committed to maintaining the 2015 accord. But now, they accuse Iran of violating its provisions, alleging that Tehran has amassed a uranium stockpile exceeding the 2015 agreement’s limit by more than 40 times.
On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the E3 countries, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, and their Iranian counterpart talked by phone, with both sides noting that there had been no significant advancement towards reaching an agreement.
If the E3 moves forward, it would mean implementing the broad United Nations sanctions that existed before the 2015 agreement, which include a ban on conventional arms, limits on ballistic missile programmes, and freezes on Iranian assets.
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