- calendar_today August 25, 2025
Germany, France and the U.K. are on the verge of triggering the reimposition of U.N. sanctions on Iran, three European officials told CNN Wednesday. The mechanism, known as a “snapback,” could be activated as soon as Thursday, according to the sources.
The process takes 30 days, which leaves a small window for diplomacy in which European leaders are hoping Tehran will come back to serious negotiations and start to comply with its obligations. European diplomats need to return facilities to international inspectors and suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran, meanwhile, has threatened serious retaliation in the event of a return of sanctions. The move would mark another twist in a conflict-ridden summer in which Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed by Israel and Iran fired rockets at Israel, drawing in U.S. forces near the conflict’s end.
The snapback mechanism is part of the Iran nuclear deal, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Snapback, included as part of the deal, would allow members to return U.N. sanctions on Iran if it violates the agreement.
European nations that struck the JCPOA are reportedly running out of time to act before the snapback authority expires in October. Iran’s nuclear program has grown significantly beyond the limits outlined in the agreement since then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA.
Iran has refused to stop its work on nuclear enrichment, and insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. But its work has been ramped up to a point where analysts and inspectors say it is much closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon.
“We have confirmed that the limits set in the JCPOA in terms of the size of the stockpile, the level of enrichment and number of centrifuges have already been exceeded,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told a press conference on Wednesday.
“Going back to the original JCPOA would be almost impossible,” he added.
“It’s about the 30 days,” State Secretary for Political Affairs Marcos Rubi told CNN on Wednesday, following talks with his European counterparts.
Snapback talks between the U.S. and European powers are due to continue on Wednesday. Rubi described the snapback as a “very powerful piece of leverage on the Iranian regime.”
Return of IAEA Inspectors
Lawmakers in Iran’s parliament recently approved a bill that would stop cooperation with international nuclear inspectors and close facilities to them. However, IAEA inspectors have been at Iran’s nuclear facilities in recent days.
Inspectors were at the Bushehr nuclear power plant Wednesday, Grossi confirmed.
“We are on the ground in Bushehr, today we are inspecting Bushehr. We are continuing the conversation so that we can go to all the places, including the facilities that have been attacked,” he told reporters in Washington Wednesday.
The IAEA’s monitoring provisions are written in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran remains a signatory. Iran has reportedly discussed walking away from the NPT in the event that sanctions are reinstated.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said inspectors were at Bushehr to monitor the fuel being replaced after an attack. While he said there was no general agreement with Iran for “new cooperation,” he said the decision to let IAEA in to monitor the fuel change was made by the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
In the wake of the June attack on its nuclear facilities, the IAEA withdrew its inspectors from Iran. The agency said the fighting had made it impossible to continue monitoring and said they would return when the “situation allows.”
Images shared by the IAEA Wednesday show missing grates at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Research Center and damage to entrances to some buildings at the site. Satellite images of the Natanz enrichment plant show entrances to underground sites missing or damaged.
Iran accused the agency of helping Israel by publicizing the fact that Iran was not complying with safeguard rules which allowed Israel to strike, the Associated Press reported. Grossi met with Iran’s top security official to discuss the matter on Wednesday.
Split Over IAEA Monitoring in Iran
Iran’s decision to let IAEA inspectors back into some facilities appears to be attracting criticism at home. Parliamentary member Kamran Ghazanfari lambasted parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf over the weekend for allowing “explicit violation” of a parliamentary law that suspended cooperation with the IAEA.
Lawmakers in Iran’s parliament approved a bill that would stop cooperation with IAEA and close facilities to them. Lawmakers passed the legislation in the wake of the June conflict with Israel, saying the moves were to protect Iran against foreign aggression and reports that the IAEA treated Tehran unfairly.
Talks Before Snapback Decision
European negotiators had a final meeting with Iranian representatives in Geneva on Tuesday in a last-minute effort to forestall the snapback decision. But sources close to the talks say little progress was made in the closed-door session.
Witkoff, the U.S. envoy who was trying to craft a new nuclear deal with Iran ahead of the recent conflict, had been in a long-running and largely secret diplomatic process that collapsed with the fighting.
Grossi Says Iran Talks Should Continue
Grossi is hoping for a possible de-escalation in the next month. He told reporters Wednesday he was not going to predict what will happen over the next 30 days, but said they are “days to continue the conversation, it’s not a countdown.”
“I don’t know if I would talk about days to an end, or if I would talk about days of continuation of a conversation because if that continues there can still be positive developments,” he said.
“We have to do our job without being partisan and try to find a way forward. We cannot be hostage to politics and diplomatic conditions, but we have to also be very realistic, which is that Iran is a member of the NPT,” he added.
