The meeting, which is underway in Turkiye’s Istanbul on Friday morning, will be the first since Israel’s mid-June attack on Iran, which led to an intensive 12-day conflict with the United States militarily intervening on Israel’s behalf also attacking key Iranian nuclear sites.
Israel’s offensive – which killed top commanders, nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians as residential areas were struck as well – also derailed US-Iran nuclear talks that began in April.
Iran said on Friday that the meeting is an opportunity for with the so-called E3 group of Germany, UK and France, to correct their positions on Iran’s nuclear issue. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with state news agency IRNA that Iran considers the talk of extending UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to be doubly “meaningless and baseless”.
The resolution, which cemented the 2015 deal Iran reached with world powers under which it curbed enrichment in return for much-needed sanctions relief, is due to expire in October. It enshrines the big powers’ prerogative to to restore UN sanctions.
Since then, the E3, have threatened to trigger the “snapback mechanism”, which would reinstate the sanctions on Iran by the end of August, under the effectively moribund 2015 nuclear deal which United States President Donald Trump unilaterally torpedoed in 2018 during his first term.
The option to trigger the snapback expires in October, and Tehran has warned of consequences should the E3 opt to activate it.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who is attending the talks Friday, alongside senior Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi, warned this week that triggering sanctions “is completely illegal”.
He also accused European powers of “halting their commitments” to the deal after the US withdrew from it.
“We have warned them of the risks, but we are still seeking common ground to manage the situation,” said Gharibabadi.
Warning from Tehran
Iranian diplomats have previously warned that Tehran could withdraw from the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty if UN sanctions are reimposed.
Restoring sanctions would deepen Iran’s international isolation and place further pressure on its already strained economy.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has urged European powers to trigger the mechanism. Israel’s June 13 attack on Iran came two days before Tehran and Washington were scheduled to meet for a sixth round of nuclear negotiations.
On June 22, the US istruck Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.
Before the conflict, Washington and Tehran were divided over uranium enrichment, which Iran has described as a “non-negotiable” right for civilian purposes, while the US called it a “red line”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran is enriching uranium to 60 percent purity – far above the 3.67 percent cap under the 2015 deal, which is well below the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade levels.
Tehran has said it is open to discussing the rate and level of enrichment, but not the right to enrich uranium.
A year after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Iran reportedly began rolling back its commitments, which had placed restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Israel and Western powers accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons – a charge Tehran has consistently denied. Both US intelligence and the IAEA said they had seen no evidence of Iran pursuin a nuclear weapon in the build up to the June conflict.
Enrichment is ‘stopped’
Iran insists it will not abandon its nuclear programme, which Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called a source of “national pride”.
The full extent of the damage sustained in the US bombing remains unclear. Trump has claimed the sites were “completely destroyed”, but US media reports have cast doubt over the scale of destruction.
Araghchi has noted that enrichment is currently “stopped” due to “serious and severe” damage to nuclear sites caused by US and Israeli strikes.
In an interview with Al Jazeera that aired on Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran is prepared for another war and reiterated that its nuclear programme will continue within the framework of international law while adding the country had no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons.
Since the 12-day conflict, Iran has suspended cooperation with the IAEA, accusing it of bias and failing to condemn the attacks.
Inspectors have since left the country, but a technical team is expected to return in the coming weeks after Iran said future cooperation would take a “new form”.
Israel has warned it may resume strikes if Iran rebuilds facilities or moves towards weapons capability. Iran has pledged a “harsh response” to any future attacks.
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