Iran Warns It Could Exit Nuclear Treaty if Europe Reimposes Sanctions

Iran Warns It Could Exit Nuclear Treaty if Europe Reimposes Sanctions

NY Times-July24th2025

A top Iranian official warned on Wednesday that Iran could withdraw from a key nuclear nonproliferation treaty if Europe followed through on its threats to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

The remarks, from Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, came during a rare on-the-record briefing with reporters in New York, where he was attending meetings at the United Nations. Mr. Gharibabadi laid out his country’s positions on a range of issues, setting the stage for nuclear talks with European counterparts in Istanbul on Friday.

Since negotiations between the United States and Iran collapsed in June as Israel launched a wave of attacks on Iran, setting off a 12-day war, Tehran has faced additional pressure from Europe about making concessions on its nuclear program.

Britain, France and Germany announced this month that they would enforce tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not make concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear program. The mechanism for applying the sanctions is called a “snapback,” and it refers to a term in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that allows parties to the deal to impose sanctions on Iran before the deal expires at the end of October this year if it has violated its terms.

Mr. Gharibabadi, who is part of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, warned that enacting snapback sanctions would provoke Iran to retaliate, including potentially by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one of the last remaining international safeguards on its nuclear program.

Iranian officials have made similar threats in the past, saying the country would withdraw from the treaty if Israel or the United States attacked its nuclear sites. But even after the United States and Israel did just that during the recent war, Iran did not follow through on that threat.

Mr. Gharibabadi said Iran had shown restraint so far, but he added, “I’m quite confident that if the snapback is triggered, Iran will not show more restraint in this regard.”

He said Iran would continue to engage with Europeans who hold the snapback leverage, but was also open to resuming talks with Washington.

“We cannot chose one of them; we should work on both of them,” he said, adding that, for Iran, negotiations with Americans “would have more benefits.”