Iran threatens to withdraw from nuclear talks if Europe presses economic sanctions

Iran says if Europe pulls the trigger on UN sanctions, nuclear inspections are off. On Sunday, Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council warned that the entire agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency could be scrapped if France, Germany, or the UK go ahead with reinstating old Security Council measures.

According to the statement, “those arrangements will be suspended” if there’s “any hostile action,” including reviving resolutions that were previously closed.

The Council, which sets both security and foreign policy for the country, made it clear that Iran has already agreed to submit reports to the IAEA. But if that deal is under threat, so is Iran’s willingness to keep playing along.

Tehran also repeated that it might pull out of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons if the pressure keeps coming.

According to Bloomberg, this back-and-forth follows the strikes in June by U.S. and Israeli forces on three Iranian nuclear facilities. After those bombings, Iran blocked all foreign access to its nuclear sites, arguing that giving up information could help future attacks.

With inspections frozen, the UK, France, and Germany moved to activate a formal process that could bring back UN sanctions. The deadline they gave is September 28.

Europe sets deadline, Iran delays cooperation

Iran and the IAEA tried to fix the damage last week with a face-to-face meeting in Cairo. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and Iranian diplomat Abbas Araghchi came out of that meeting with a tentative deal.

That deal could open the door for inspections to restart, but Europe isn’t convinced. All three countries said Iran must first reveal exactly where its uranium is and engage in talks with President Trump’s administration before the UN penalties can be taken off the table.

Speaking in Vienna on Wednesday, Rafael said the document agreed upon in Cairo “provides for a clear understanding of the procedures for inspection, notifications, and their implementation.” He added that it includes “reporting on all the attacked facilities, including the nuclear material present.”

The meeting in Egypt came as international players are trying to bring Iran back under proper oversight. The June airstrikes didn’t just hit infrastructure. They also ended two decades of IAEA monitoring.

Since then, no one knows how much enriched uranium Iran has or where it is. Diplomats say Iran still hasn’t turned over the initial report detailing uranium locations. And until they do, the IAEA can’t safely send inspectors into sites that are now filled with unexploded bombs and toxic waste.

Iran resists inspections over Israeli airstrike fears

Iran now has two weeks to show it’s serious before UN sanctions hit again. If that happens, Iran has threatened to walk away completely, shutting down the inspection deal and possibly leaving the NPT altogether.

The IAEA hasn’t published the full agreement with Tehran, and officials are being careful. At Wednesday’s board meeting, diplomats said the agency might acknowledge the progress but won’t slow the sanctions process. Everything depends on whether Iran delivers that report before the September 28 deadline.

The Cairo meeting happened as Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in Qatar, targeting Hamas, a Palestinian group supported by Iran. That timing fed Iran’s argument that any data it shares with the IAEA could get passed to Israeli forces, putting nuclear sites and personnel in danger.

Rafael addressed that worry directly. “The issue of confidentiality has been mentioned a lot,” he said during a Monday press briefing. “We are ready to talk about their security concerns. And this is a part of what we are discussing now.”

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