TEHRAN – At least in the past year, the three European countries, known as the E3, have not only failed to take constructive steps toward finding a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear issue, but have continuously worked to sabotage any prospect in that direction.

This behavior partly reflects the chronic inability of the E3 to help resolve global issues but can also be interpreted as a sinister move to pave the way for what happened on September 26 in New York — triggering the so-called “snapback” mechanism and completing the cycle of undermining diplomacy and multilateralism. 

Recalling the course of recent events helps in better understanding such assessment. In November 2024, before the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, its Director-General, Grossi visited Tehran and reached an agreement with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization on how to deal with the 60% enriched uranium. Pleased with this achievement, he left Tehran. However, in Vienna, instead of welcoming this constructive agreement, the E3 countries imposed a resolution on the Board of Governors, demanding the Director-General to provide a comprehensive report on Iran’s nuclear activities. Knowing that the composition of the Board favored them, the Europeans’ sole concern was to pressure Iran and prepare the ground for the snapback mechanism. Therefore, they chose to disregard Grossi’s agreement with Tehran and pursue their own agenda. 

The E3 even insisted that Grossi submit his comprehensive report as soon as possible, prior to the deadline set by the resolution they themselves had proposed to the Board of Governors. 
Eventually, the Director-General’s report was published in early June, and despite Grossi’s unconstructive approach in preparing the report — including going beyond his mandate as outlined in the resolution, reopening closed nuclear files, and reviving outdated accusations — it contained two main and fundamental messages: first, that Iran has no nuclear weapons program; and second, that all nuclear materials and activities in Iran are under the IAEA supervision and safeguards. 

Once again, the E3 decided to disregard these core messages and spearheaded another resolution at the Board of Governors accusing Iran of non-compliance —a term that even the infamous Director-General’s report did not contain and was merely another tool to pave the way for referring Iran’s nuclear issue to the Security Council. However, this resolution opened the door for a well-known notorious aggressor: less than 24 hours after the resolution was adopted, Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran and subsequently succeeded in dragging the United States in the conflict. 

Following this blatant crime by Israel and the U.S., which was not only an attack on Iran but also a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, cooperation and inspections by the IAEA in Iran were effectively suspended. Not only did the E3 not condemn the attacks, they even admitted that Israel was doing the “dirty work” for them — dirty work that took the lives of over a thousand Iranian civilians and had objectives beyond Iran’s nuclear issue.
 
Pretending as if nothing had happened, the E3 claimed that, with the snapback deadline approaching, they were seeking to give diplomacy another chance and wanted to delay it by six months — even though, legally speaking, due to their serious violations of Resolution 2231, they had no such privilege. Nonetheless, this E3 initiative included one or rather three nearly impossible preconditions given the remaining time until the expiration of the JCPOA: direct negotiations with the U.S. (who had attacked Iran militarily in the midst of diplomatic talks), the full restoration of cooperation with the IAEA, and clarifying the status of Iran’s enriched nuclear materials. 

Despite E3 insincerity and the terrible record of the Director-General, both before and after the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran not only did not withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also sought ways to resume cooperation with the IAEA, initiating technical negotiations to draft a practical arrangement for this purpose. After three rounds of expert talks, Iran’s Foreign Minister and the Director-General signed this document in Cairo to restart inspections, with due respect for Iran’s security concerns. Grossi was again satisfied with this agreement, but as expected, the E3 was not. It showed little enthusiasm for the Tehran-IAEA agreement. They did not even welcome it at the September 2025 Board of Governors meeting. They were of the view that they had the snapback option at their disposal and, regardless of the realities on the ground and the level of Iran’s cooperation or nuclear activities, insisted on using it! 

Later, on 28 August, without going through the dispute resolution mechanism foreseen in Security Council Resolution 2231, they declared Iran’s significant non-performance with the resolution to the Korean Presidency of the Security Council. By doing that, the E3 took the last step to hand over their role on the Iran nuclear issue to the U.S. In effect, they gave control to America and took the backseat, waiting to see what solution President Trump would come up with. 

The final nail in the coffin of their standing was hammered on Friday, 26 September, when they stubbornly voted against the six-month extension of Resolution 2231 proposed by Russia and China. There were only ten days between the failure of South Korea’s draft resolution on 16 September to maintain the 2231 sanctions lifting and the failure of Russia and China’s extension resolution. During this time, the Iranian delegation, led by its President and Foreign Minister, attending the 80th session of the General Assembly in New York, made several proposals to find a solution to the problem. The three countries, aware that they no longer had a real role on the matter, despite finding the proposals acceptable, could not act beyond echoing Washington’s excessive demands. 
Given Iran’s recent experience and an obvious destructive approach demonstrated by the E3 in resolving the issues surrounding Resolution 2231, it seems that the inclusion of the E3 in any future multilateral process simply adds no value. The E3 has repeatedly proven that it lacks a credible standing to make meaningful decisions on international issues without the U.S. consent. The inclusion of the E3 in the negotiations led to Resolution 2231 was a mistake out of negligence, and repeating that same mistake cannot be justified under the same title! 

Mohammad Hassaninejad is Director General for Peace and International Security