On Saturday, Iran, Russia, and China sent a letter to the UN Security Council declaring that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, has officially expired.
The official termination of the JCPOA comes seven years after the US unilaterally quit the deal during the first Trump administration in 2018.
In the letter, the three countries condemned France, the UK, and Germany, known as the E3, for triggering the snapback mechanism of the JCPOA, which re-imposed UN Security Council sanctions that were lifted back in 2015. Russia and China’s opposition to the move signals they will not follow the sanctions, which include an arms embargo.
“The attempt by the E3 to trigger the so-called ‘snapback’ is by default legally and procedurally flawed,” Iran, Russia, and China said, adding that the E3 “ceased to perform their commitments” under the JCPOA and UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the agreement and created the snapback mechanism.
The ability to snap back the sanctions would have expired with the JCPOA, which is why the E3 countries ensured they were reimposed beforehand, a step they likely took at the behest of the US. The sanctions came just a few months after the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran, which involved the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran, Russia, and China told the Security Council that the end of the JCPOA and the “conclusion of Resolution 2231 marks the end of the Security Council’s consideration of the Iranian nuclear issue and contributes to strengthening the authority of the Council and the credibility of multilateral diplomacy.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry also released a statement that said all of the “provisions (of the deal), including the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program and the related mechanisms, are considered terminated.” The Foreign Ministry reiterated that Tehran was still open to diplomacy over its nuclear program, though any diplomatic progress with the US is unlikely due to the Trump administration’s demands.
Iran remains a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its leadership has reaffirmed in recent months that Tehran is not seeking nuclear weapons and is still bound by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa that prohibits the development of nuclear weapons.
Israel, which is always accusing Iran of moving toward nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the NPT and has a secret nuclear weapons stockpile, making it the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East.
