In response to the possibility of Europe using the snapback mechanism against Tehran’s nuclear program, Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced that Iran will act within the framework of its “rights and obligations” and that the issuance of a resolution by the IAEA Board of Governors will not affect Tehran’s plans for “nuclear development.”
Nasser Kanaani, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said at his press conference on Monday, June 10, regarding the potential use of the snapback mechanism by European countries: “I will not speculate on what Europe intends, but naturally, Iran has acted and will act within the framework of its rights and obligations.”
The snapback mechanism is a procedure provided for in UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which allows JCPOA parties to request the automatic re-imposition of all international sanctions suspended under this resolution if Iran violates its commitments.
Under the snapback mechanism, members of the nuclear agreement can claim that the other party has violated its commitments, and thus, after a four-step legal process that takes a total of 65 days, UN sanctions against Iran are reinstated.
On the other hand, Ali Bagheri Kani, the acting head of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, in his speech at the meeting of foreign ministers of the BRICS countries in Russia, said: “The issuance of a political resolution in the IAEA will have no effect on Tehran’s determination to continue the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to implement its nuclear development plans.”
Bagheri Kani emphasized on Sunday, June 9, that Iran “will continue to cooperate with the Agency within the framework of its rights and obligations under the NPT and the Safeguards Agreement.”
This is while Tehran, late last summer, prevented the presence of many senior experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency in the inspection team, an act that Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the Agency, described as disproportionate, unprecedented, and a serious blow to the agency’s mission.
After the issuance of the Board of Governors’ resolution against Tehran’s nuclear program, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, the three European countries that are members of the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA, detailed in a letter to the UN Security Council Iran’s violations of the agreement.
The expiration date of the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran and the snapback mechanism, which allows for the imposition of further sanctions against Iran, ends in October.
This mechanism, provided for in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 in 2015, allows for the immediate re-imposition of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran until before October 2025.
In their letter to the UN Security Council, the three European countries said that the recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency considers the development and advancement of Iran’s nuclear program, including the increase in uranium stockpiles and enrichment levels, to be in violation of the JCPOA.
The IAEA, in its latest quarterly report, states that Iran has increased its 60% uranium enrichment level to the extent that, if enrichment continues to the 90% level, it will have the capability to build three nuclear bombs.
This is while, under the terms of the JCPOA, Iran is only allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67%.
However, after the United States withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran gradually suspended its commitments under the nuclear agreement and has now increased its uranium enrichment level to 60%.
