Iran and European countries – represented in Britain, France and Germany – held a round of nuclear talks last week at the Iranian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
These are the first negotiations on the issue of the Iranian nuclear file since Israel and the United States launched an attack on Iran last June.
It also comes after the decline in the European role due to the policies of US President Donald Trump, and his endeavor to negotiate with Iran directly away from the eyes of the Europeans.
In this context, questions arise about the importance of Istanbul talks, and is it a European attempt to restore the initiative regarding the Iranian nuclear file?
What is left to negotiate?
The parties participating in the Istanbul talks are kept silent against the results of the talks of the talks that took place between delegations from Iran and European countries, during which closed discussions continued for more than 3 hours, according to the Turkish Anatolia News Agency, and like Iran, Majeed Takht Rwanji and Kazem Gharib Apadi, Deputy Foreign Minister.
In a report on the nuclear negotiations between Europe and Iran, published by the German Radio Shevilier Radio website, European policy analyst Kirsten Nip considered that there are existing questions that define answers to the importance or feasibility of any negotiation process related to the Iranian nuclear file.
These questions revolve around the technical situation of the Iranian nuclear program after the attacks by Israel and the United States on Iranian nuclear facilities, and whether Iran is able to continue its program at all.
Neb concludes that the limited information available does not support President Trump’s allegations that the Iranian nuclear program has “fully destroyed”.
The Dot Cheville report quotes an expert in Iran’s affairs at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs Hamid Reda Azizi that Iran is likely to be able to resume the fertilization program in the short and medium term.
Dear, it is estimated that Iran still possesses a lot of highly enriched uranium that it has stored over the past few years, and that the attacks have not paralyzed its ability to enrich uranium.
Although he confirms that until now, there have been no indications that Iran has taken effective steps to resume its program, but he believes that such a step is only a matter of political decision, in addition to military and security considerations, more than a matter of technical capabilities.
However, Michael Barzoska, a politician at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, considers it likely to have become technically difficult for Iran to continue to enrich uranium to a level sufficient to make nuclear weapons.
Barzoska – as it was reported by Dot Cheville – suggested that the centrifugal devices needed to fertilize may have been damaged to the point that it is no longer suitable for use, but he added, “It is not possible to exclude the presence of hidden central expulsion devices in other locations, but there is currently not information about it.”
A final deadline for Iran
Prior to the Istanbul talks, Exius stated in a report that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had contacted his counterparts in Germany, France and Britain in mid -July, and they agreed to set a deadline for Iran to reach a nuclear agreement.
According to the American website, this date ends at the end of next August. If an agreement is not reached by the date of that date, European partners plan to re -impose previous United Nations sanctions on Tehran automatically.
Analyst Barzoska believes that it is very likely that the Iranian leadership will reconsider its current strategy that has sparked the concerns of other countries.
But dear, he confirms that Iran is currently sending “conflicting signs”, explaining that Iranian officials, including the President and the Foreign Minister, are still insisting that their country is still open to diplomatic dialogue.
Meanwhile, my dear, no indication of Iran is not able to soften its positions on other contentious issues, such as locally uranium enrichment or its support for non -governmental actors in the region.
The expert in Iran’s affairs at the German Institute concluded that the Iranian leadership seems to be trying to gain time, and avoid a new escalation in order to determine how to address the various problems raised.
Europe and the Iranian nuclear
European Troika (France, Britain and Germany) was the first to start negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program, in 2003, as it was an active party in the 2015 agreement.
On the Iranian nuclear file, European countries have maintained a kind of differentiation from the American position, which remained driven by the concerns of Israel, and it was more aggressive towards Iran.
While the European Troika considered the previous agreement a great success and a decisive step towards preventing nuclear spread while preserving economic and political relations with Iran, the United States soon withdrew from the agreement, which restored the file to the zero point, as Iran began accelerating the pace of uranium enrichment, and united the arrival of the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the enrichment stations, explaining this not to fulfill the other side With his obligations.
European countries have made efforts to restore the United States to the agreement, especially during the era of former President Joe Biden, but these attempts eventually failed.
The war and tension with Iran
Bilateral relations between Iran and European countries gradually deteriorated with mutual accusations of violating the agreement, as Iran accuses the European side of continuing to impose unjustified sanctions, while Europeans see that Iran’s acceleration of the pace of fertilization constitutes a violation of the previous agreement.
Tensions between the two parties escalated after the outbreak of the war of Russia and Ukraine, as the Europeans accused Iran of providing military aid to Russia.
According to a study of the European Center for Anti -Terrorism Studies, published on June 9, European Troika countries pressed in November 2024 on the Atomic Energy Agency to prepare a comprehensive report on Iranian nuclear activities so that European countries can re -impose United Nations sanctions imposed on Iran before signing the nuclear agreement in 2015.
Indeed, agency president Rafael Grossi issued a statement in which he announced that Iran is fertilizing uranium with a purity rate of (60%), which is close to the level of (90%) required to produce weapons, but rather in later statements to the Le Monde newspaper that Iran is not “far” from having the atomic bomb.
The study adds that, in conjunction, the intelligence services in both France and Britain issued reports at the end of last year that included strong warnings from the Iranian nuclear program, and considered it a source of threat to all and that its threat would be more severe in only months.
In January 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program “brings us closer to the collapse point,” adding that the European Union partners by the nuclear agreement should consider re -imposing sanctions if there is no progress by Tehran in addressing concerns.
Excluding Europeans
But Europe suddenly found itself out of the game regarding the Iranian nuclear file, as Trump announced last April the start of bilateral negotiations with Iran on reaching an agreement on its nuclear program to prevent it from having a nuclear weapon threatening America and its allies in the Middle East, especially Israel.
Even as he chooses a European city to embrace negotiations, the American president chose the Italian capital governed by a close right -wing woman in Trump.
According to the Energy News report entitled “Europeans are excluded from nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States,” European countries that were pivotal in the 2015 agreement found themselves on the margin with the start of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, which represents a major shift at the diplomatic level.
According to the site, discussions on the Iranian nuclear program took a new trend on April 12, when Iran and the United States, which have not had diplomatic ties since 1980, began negotiations through the Sultanate of Oman.
The report adds that since the United States withdrew from the 2018 nuclear agreement during the Trump administration, European countries have lost their influence steadily, as France, the United Kingdom and Germany have turned from major players in preliminary negotiations into just observers without any direct role in the negotiations, while Iran and the United States, in Omani mediation, chose to negotiate in a bilateral framework, leaving Europeans aside.
In a report entitled “The Iranian nuclear agreement: Why are Europeans absent from negotiations?” The French Press Agency’s correspondent, May Drew, quoted European diplomats as saying that the United States did not inform European countries on nuclear talks in Oman before President Trump announced it on April 2, 2025, although they have a trump card in the possibility of re -imposing United Nations sanctions on Tehran.
The exclusion of Europe from negotiations with Iran was another challenge that is a continuation of major challenges that Europe faced with Trump’s second presidency, whether with regard to military and security challenges related to NATO and Ukraine, or the economic challenges imposed by Trump’s high customs duties on European countries.
Causes of marginalization
Observers believe that the marginalization of Europeans in the Iranian nuclear file is due to various reasons, some of which are due to Washington’s marginalization policy, while others return to the self -deficit among Europeans from imposing their presence.
We can – according to the reports and studies in our hands – can enable some of the reasons for this marginalization:
- The American president’s strategy is based on direct decisiveness, as he does not see great importance to involving multiple parties in negotiation, but rather prefers the bilateral dialogues that allow him to impose his agenda and conditions.
- The loss of the Iranians’ confidence in the Europeans. After the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018 and the re -imposition of heavy sanctions, the Iranians asked the Europeans to help them by maintaining trade exchange, but European companies fled the Iranian market, which contributed greatly to the deterioration of the economic situation in the country, and undermined the credibility of the Europeans in Iran.
- Rifts within the European Union, the absence of a unified position of the European Union countries over Iran, and the different priorities of the member states, has weakened the effectiveness of the Europeans as a negotiating party.
- The hostility and contempt for Trump the Europeans.
Any role for Europe?
The Canadian researcher at the British Institute of Services United Daria Dolzikova – in a study published entitled “Iranian nuclear talks: horizons and the role of Europe” – is considered that the group of the three European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany and France) can play an important role in the fate of the nuclear file, as it is now controlling the imposition of any international sanctions on Iran or not.
The 2015 agreement includes a mechanism known as the “quick return” that authorizes each of the signed parties (the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, Germany, the European Union) with the authority to take a decision automatically to re -impose all United Nations sanctions on Iran after 30 days.
After the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018, during the first Trump administration, it can no longer activate this mechanism, and this explains the United States’s resort to European countries and the communication made by its foreign minister in mid -July with its three European counterparts to activate the mechanism of return to comprehensive sanctions by the end of August if Iran does not respond to Western demands.
But Dolzikova believes that the challenge today lies in determining the situation on which the Iranian nuclear program should be, adding that no proposal can be taken with a complete and permanent dismantling of the program seriously, as Iran has always refused to abandon its enrichment capabilities, and it is unlikely to change its course now.
🟥 Iranian Foreign Minister: Any exploitation of the “Snap Back” mechanism will have severe consequences
Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr. Abbas Araqji, warned that the activation of the Snapback mechanism to re -impose sanctions will lead to severe consequences, including ending the role of Europe in the nuclear agreement and a dangerous escalation in tensions. pic.twitter.com/stxdiei401
– Iran in Arabic (@iraninarabic_ir) May 12, 2025
Barzoska considers that the European -Iranian talks that resumed the Istanbul meeting last Friday are very important, although the sanctions imposed by America in the end are more important than an Iranian perspective, but the activation of the “Snap Back” mechanism will need all countries of the world to impose economic sanctions on Iran.
Therefore, the political world at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy concludes that Iran is likely to ensure that the Europeans are not returned to implement this mechanism.
As for the expert on Iranian affairs, dear, the Europeans and the Iranians are expected to agree to extend the deadline to activate the “Snap Back” mechanism, which provides more time and reach a possible diplomatic solution.