The message from the German Foreign Ministry comes after the foreign ministers of Germany, the United Kingdom, and France held talks with Iranian representatives on Wednesday about Tehran's nuclear program. The countries are threatening to reintroduce the harsh sanctions against Iran that were in place before the nuclear energy agreement JCPOA was signed in 2015.
The telephone meeting comes after the Europeans set a deadline of 30 days in August. If the parties have not reached an agreement by the end of September, sanctions against Iran will be introduced automatically – unless the UN Security Council stops it.
It involves, among other things, frozen Iranian assets abroad and stopped arms trade with the regime in Tehran, which is expected to hit the economically hard-pressed country hard.
After the 12-day war with Israel in June, Iran cut ties with the UN's atomic energy agency IAEA, which has been the world's eyes when it comes to the Iranian nuclear energy program. Earlier in September, however, Iran and the IAEA agreed on a new cooperation agreement, where Iran states that the inspectors' access to the country's nuclear facilities will be considered "from case to case".
Iran has not commented on Wednesday's talks.
