UK, France and Germany initiate 'snapback' sanctions on Iran over status
of nuclear program
[August 29, 2025]
By FARNOUSH AMIRI, JON GAMBRELL and STEPHANIE
LIECHTENSTEIN
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — France, Germany and the United Kingdom moved
Thursday to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear
program, further isolating Tehran after its atomic sites were repeatedly
bombed during a 12-day war with Israel.
The process, termed a “snapback” by the diplomats who negotiated it into
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, was designed to be
veto-proof at the U.N. and could take effect in a month.
It would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran
and penalize any development of Iran's ballistic missile program, among
other measures, further squeezing the country’s reeling economy.
The move starts a 30-day clock for sanctions to return, a period that
likely will see intensified diplomacy from Iran, whose refusal to
cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency,
or IAEA, started the crisis. Iran will also probably emerge as a top
focus of the U.N. General Assembly when it meets next month in New York.
The British, French and German foreign ministers suggested that they
viewed the snapback as a way to spur negotiations with Tehran.
"This measure does not signal the end of diplomacy: we are determined to
make the most of the 30-day period that is now opening to engage in
dialogue with Iran,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on
the social platform X.
But Iran immediately decried the move, with Foreign Minister Abbas
Araghchi saying it was “unjustified" and "lacking any legal basis" in a
call with his European counterparts.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will respond appropriately to this
unlawful and unwarranted measure,” he said. Hours later, the Iranian
Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the move by the European
countries will “gravely undermine” its ongoing cooperation with the U.N.
nuclear watchdog agency.
In the past, Iran has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, potentially following North Korea, which
abandoned the treaty in 2003 and then built atomic weapons.
Europeans warned Iran about return of sanctions
The three European nations warned Aug. 8 that Iran could trigger the
snapback when it halted inspections by the IAEA after Israeli strikes at
the start of the two countries’ 12-day war in June. The Israeli attacks
killed Tehran’s top military leaders and chased Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei into hiding.
The European nations triggered the sanctions process through a letter to
the U.N. Security Council. France and the U.K. also requested that the
15-member council hold closed consultations Friday to discuss Iran’s
noncompliance, according to a diplomat who spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss still-private information.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the Europeans' decision and
said America “remains available for direct engagement with Iran.”
“Snapback does not contradict our earnest readiness for diplomacy; it
only enhances it,” Rubio said in a statement.
Using the snapback mechanism will likely heighten tensions between Iran
and the West in a region still burning over the Israel-Hamas war in the
Gaza Strip. As the measure was announced, Israel launched strikes
targeting Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
“Iranian leaders perceive a sanctions ‘snapback’ as a Western effort to
weaken Iran’s economy indefinitely and perhaps stimulate sufficient
popular unrest to unseat Iran’s regime,” the New York-based Soufan
Center think tank said Thursday.
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Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends the 17th annual BRICS
summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo
Peres, File)
Iran appears resigned
After Europe’s warning, Iran initially downplayed the threat of
renewed sanctions and engaged in little visible diplomacy for weeks,
but it did take part in a brief diplomatic push in recent days,
highlighting the chaos gripping its theocracy.
In Tehran on Thursday, Iran’s rial currency traded at over 1 million
to $1. At the time of the 2015 accord, it traded at 32,000 to $1,
showing the currency’s precipitous collapse over the last decade.
Outside a currency shop in Tehran, resident Arman Vasheghani
Farahani told The Associated Press that “many of us feel a deep
sense of uncertainty and desperation” over the currency collapse
sparked by the nuclear tensions.
“Should we keep trying, or is it time to give up? And how long will
this situation last?” he asked. “No official seems willing to take
responsibility for what’s happening.”
At issue is Iran’s nuclear enrichment
Before the war in June, Iran was enriching uranium up to 60% purity
— a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. It
also built a stockpile containing enough highly enriched uranium to
build multiple atomic bombs, should it choose to do so.
Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, though Western
nations and the IAEA assess that Tehran had an active nuclear
weapons program until 2003. It remains unclear just how much the
Israeli and U.S. strikes on nuclear sites during the war disrupted
Iran’s program.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to allow the IAEA even greater
access to its nuclear program than the agency has in other member
nations. That included permanently installing cameras and sensors at
nuclear sites.
But IAEA inspectors, who faced increasing restrictions on their
activities since the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear
deal in 2018, have yet to access those sites. Meanwhile, Iran has
said it moved uranium and other equipment out before the strikes —
possibly to new, undeclared sites that raise the risk that monitors
could lose track of the program’s status.
On Wednesday, IAEA inspectors were on hand to watch a fuel
replacement at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, which is run with
Russian technical assistance.
Despite inspectors returning to Iran, the head of the IAEA, Rafael
Grossi, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that regaining access
to crucial nuclear facilities is still “a work in progress."
Russia and China try to buy Iran time
The snapback mechanism will expire Oct. 18. After that, any
sanctions effort would face a veto from U.N. Security Council
members China and Russia — nations that have provided some support
to Iran in the past but stayed out of the June war. China has
remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, something that could be
affected if snapback happens.
Russia announced Thursday that Moscow and Beijing introduced a draft
resolution to the Security Council, offering a six-month extension
of the U.N. sanctions relief. Russia is also due to take the
presidency of the council in October, which is likely to put
additional pressure on the Europeans to act.
___
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and
Liechtenstein reported from Vienna. Associated Press writers Amir
Vahdat and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran, Iran, and Matthew Lee in
Washington contributed to this report.
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