European, Iranian diplomats hold last-minute nuclear talks ahead of sanctions deadline

Vienna: Representatives from Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3 nations, are set to hold last-minute talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva on Tuesday amid a fast-approaching deadline for the Europeans to reimpose sanctions on Iran by triggering the so-called snapback mechanism.

The meeting was announced by the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Monday. The talks follow a previous meeting between the Europeans and Iran in Istanbul on July 25.

The Europeans’ concern over the Iranian nuclear programme, which had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels before the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June saw its atomic sites bombed, has only grown since Tehran cut off all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in the conflict’s wake.

That has left the international community further blinded to Iran’s programme — as well as the status of its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent. Iran has long insisted its programme is peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed nation enriching uranium at that level. The US, the IAEA and others say Iran had a nuclear weapons programme up until 2003.

The Europeans agreed with the US earlier this year to set an end-of-August deadline for invoking the mechanism if Iran fails to meet several conditions, including resuming negotiations with the US over its nuclear programme, allowing UN nuclear inspectors access to its nuclear sites and accounting for the over 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

The “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear

deal can be invoked by any party if they find Iran out

of compliance with requirements.