PARIS/WASHINGTON/DUBAI, June 28 (Reuters) – European diplomats have told Iran they plan to retain European Union ballistic missile sanctions set to expire in October under the defunct 2015 Iran nuclear deal, four sources said, a step that could provoke Iranian retaliation.

The sources cited three reasons for keeping the sanctions: Russia’s use of Iranian drones against Ukraine; the possibility Iran might transfer ballistic missiles to Russia; and depriving Iran of the nuclear deal’s benefits given Tehran has violated the accord, albeit only after the United States did so first.

Keeping the EU sanctions would reflect Western efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them despite the collapse of the 2015 deal, which then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018.

The crux of that pact, which Iran made with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, limited Tehran’s nuclear program to make it harder for it to get fissile material for a bomb in return for relief from economic sanctions.

As a result of Trump’s withdrawal from the deal and U.S. President Joe Biden’s failure to revive it, Iran could make the fissile material for one bomb in 12 days or so, according to U.S. estimates, down from a year when the accord was in force.

With that deal effectively dead, Iran’s relations with the West have deteriorated over the last year, leading Washington and its allies to look for ways to de-escalate tensions and, if that happened, for a way to revive some kind of nuclear limits.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, which the West sees as a threat to Israel and Gulf Arab oil exporters.

POSSIBLE IRANIAN RETALIATION

“The Iranians have been told quite clearly (of plans to keep the sanctions) and now the question is what, if any, retaliatory steps the Iranians might take and (how) to anticipate that,” said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.

The EU sanctions are set to expire on Oct. 18 under a U.N. resolution that enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal.

They “called upon” Iran not to do anything to develop ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons, a phrase urging Iran not to do so but short of a mandatory prohibition.

They also barred anyone from buying, selling or transferring drones and their components capable of flying more than 300 km (186 miles) to or from Iran without prior authorization from the U.N. Security Council, permission that has not been granted.

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