Russia blames the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal for Tehran’s non-compliance, as tensions escalate and the E3 nations move to reimpose UN sanctions.
Russia and China have proposed extending the timeline of the Iran nuclear deal amid rising tensions over Tehran’s violations of uranium enrichment protocols and ongoing international sanctions.
On Thursday, Russia criticized former President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, asserting that Washington is responsible for Tehran’s failure to comply with the international treaty. This statement came shortly after the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—collectively known as the E3—alerted the UN Security Council that they had activated the snapback mechanism to reimpose severe UN sanctions on Iran within 30 days due to its non-compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The United States abandoned the JCPOA, and since then the situation started to deteriorate,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s UN Ambassador, stated on Thursday. He emphasized the importance of recognizing the root cause of the issue, referring to Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw the U.S. from the JCPOA over alleged Iranian violations.
While Trump has consistently claimed that Iran was breaching the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other JCPOA signatories have maintained that there was no evidence of Iran expanding its nuclear program until 2019. This position remains unchanged.
“We all know that the measures that were taken by Iran in terms of uranium enrichment were in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA,” Polyanskiy remarked. “And these measures can easily be reviewed.”
In response to the escalating situation, Russia and China introduced a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Thursday, seeking to extend the timeline of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement by six months. This extension would delay the imposition of sanctions on Tehran. However, given Iran’s previous refusal to comply with a similar extension proposed by E3 negotiators in July, it seems unlikely that the U.S., France, or the U.K., as permanent members of the Security Council, will support this initiative.
The U.S. has long urged other signatories to enforce snapback sanctions on Iran for its violations, a capability it lost when it exited the agreement in 2018. Despite clear evidence of Iran’s breaches of the JCPOA—such as accumulating up to 45 times the allowed amount of enriched uranium, operating advanced centrifuges, and denying the IAEA access to its nuclear sites—Polyanskiy claimed that the E3’s recent actions “cannot and should not entail any legal or procedural effect.” He characterized the E3’s move as “a mere escalatory step.”
“Western countries…don’t care about diplomacy; they only care about blackmail, threats, and coercion of independent countries,” he added.
A UK official confirmed on Thursday that efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution with Iran have been ongoing for years. This includes a proposal agreed upon by all JCPOA participants, including Russia and China, in 2022, which Iran ultimately rejected. The official noted that there had been “very intense diplomacy” over the past year, particularly in the last six months and six weeks, but Russia appeared to dismiss these efforts on Thursday.
“The world is at a crossroads,” Polyanskiy stated. “It’s quite clear. One option is peace, diplomacy, and goodwill. Another option is…diplomacy at the barrel of the gun…extortion and blackmail,” he concluded.
The White House did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital regarding the situation.
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