Sanctions against Iran are set to be reinstated on 28 September unless a solution is negotiated beforehand. On Friday 19 September, the UN Security Council voted in favour of reinstating sanctions against the Iranian regime, due to Tehran’s failure to comply with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear programme, agreed in 2015.
Jérôme Bonnafont, the French ambassador to the UN, said: “We have done everything we can to find an alternative” to reinstating sanctions, a mechanism known as ‘snapback’. Iran could still reach a negotiated solution with Germany, France and the United Kingdom (‘E3’) by 28 September. These three countries were behind triggering the ‘snapback’ mechanism at the end of August (see EUROPE 13697/3).
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, denounced the UN Security Council's decision on Friday: “What the Europeans are doing is politically biased (...), legally illegal, internationally illegitimate and strategically very wrong”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)