Senior Iranian officials and the three major European powers are meeting in Geneva this Tuesday to try to restart dialogue on nuclear issues. France, Great Britain, and Germany, united under the acronym E3, are demanding that Tehran resume international inspections and return to diplomacy, failing which they are threatening to reimpose sanctions lifted under the 2015 agreement.
The Europeans' ultimatum is clear: they intend to decide by the end of August whether to activate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows for the automatic reinstatement of UN sanctions. The official deadline is October 18, the expiration of a nuclear agreement signed ten years ago but now largely obsolete.
The talks are taking place in a particularly tense climate. Tehran is still furious about the bombings carried out by the United States and Israel against its nuclear facilities, two close allies of the Europeans. Furthermore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not had access to Iranian nuclear sites since these attacks, and part of the country's stockpile of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for to this day.
The Europeans are insisting on specific conditions: the immediate resumption of IAEA inspections and clear commitments on transparency in Iran's nuclear program. "We want to see if the Iranians are credible in their desire for a delay or if they are simply trying to buy time," said a European diplomat.
At this stage, Tehran has not shown any tangible signs of concessions. But a temporary extension of the deadline could be considered if progress is made. For Europeans, this is not only a matter of ensuring the credibility of the multilateral non-proliferation framework, but also of sending a strong political signal to Washington and Tel Aviv, at a time when regional tensions remain high.
The Geneva meeting could therefore be decisive: either it opens the way to a re-engagement, even limited, or it will confirm the definitive failure of one of the last major international agreements on nuclear power.
