As the Islamic Republic of Iran sends contradictory signals in response to President Trump’s letter offering nuclear diplomacy, Europeans for the first time are explicitly saying they might cancel President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal and replace it with onerous global sanctions.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was endorsed in 2015 by a United Nations Security Council resolution that contains a clause allowing each of its parties to cancel it unilaterally, and reimpose all previous sanctions on Iran. Now that Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon, previously reluctant Europeans are talking about utilizing that “snapback” clause.
“We will take any diplomatic measures to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, and that includes the use of snapback if needed,” the British deputy ambassador at the United Nations, James Kariuki, told reporters Wednesday. He spoke after an extraordinary Security Council session on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear advances.
The UN nuclear watchdog, known as the International Atomic Energy Agency, “reported last month that Iran has now produced 275 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent,” Mr. Kariuki said. “That’s way beyond anything needed for civilian use. And no other non-nuclear state has anything like that amount.”
After Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, America attempted to trigger the snapback option at the UN. Yet, other Security Council members, including the Europeans, argued that as a non-JCPOA member, Washington was no longer eligible to do so. Now, the same Europeans seem ready to start the snapback process themselves.
On Thursday a United Arab Emirates diplomatic adviser, Anwar Gargash, delivered Mr. Trump’s letter to the Tehran leadership. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, expressed openness to indirectly negotiating with Washington. His preferred intermediary is Oman, the country that Mr. Obama used to initiate the process that led to the JCPOA.
“Negotiation is feasible,” Mr. Aragchi told an Iranian newspaper Thursday. “What is important is that the will to negotiate and reach a fair and just agreement comes up in equal conditions.” He seemingly contradicted the only Iranian who has the power to make decisions on this matter, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly rejected any talks with “the Great Satan.”
“Khamenei and his minions have a clear division of labor that matches the Persian proverb of pushing away with the hand and pulling towards with the foot,” an Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun.
Even if negotiations start, though, Mr. Trump and his Iran interlocutors are far apart. Tehran’s starting point is a return to the understandings of the JCPOA; Washington insists on an abrupt end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, as detailed in a February 4 White House [fact sheet](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-restores-maximum-pressure-on-iran/) detailing a return to America’s “maximum pressure” policies.
In addition to restoring strict American sanctions, including on Iranian oil exports, the White House writes that “the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations will work with key allies to complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.”
While the snapback process can be triggered unilaterally by any JCPOA party, the process of resuming global sanctions is quite complex, lasting no less than two months. According to the 2015 Security Council resolution that endorsed the deal, the snapback option expires after 10 years, which occurs this coming October.
Adding to the complications, an Iranian ally, Russia, will assume the Security Council’s rotating presidency in October. America and the Europeans will therefore “want to start the snapback process well in advance, to avoid having Russia be in the chair” at the crucial moment, the United Against Nuclear Iran policy director, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun.
The new dynamic at the UN reminds Mr. Brodsky of how sanctions were initially imposed on Iran there in 2011, before Mr. Obama opted to replace them with the JCPOA that gradually eased all pressure on Iran. Like now, the Europeans in 2011 asked for a “comprehensive report from the IAEA, and there was referral to the UN Security Council, and sanctions were imposed thereafter,” he says.
Perhaps fearing a restoration of global sanctions, Tehran is now hinting it is ready to negotiate. Yet, it is “speaking in the language of the JCPOA,” Mr. Brodsky says, while the Trump administration “has a more expansive and sweeping deal in mind, and that is the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, disarmament akin to the Libya 2003 model.” Therefore, he adds, “I think that we are heading towards a collision, not a successful diplomacy.”