Britain, France and Germany announced Friday that they will not support the efforts of the United States to reimpose UN sanctions against Iran, while stressing that IAEA inspectors are allowed to visit Iran's nuclear facilities.
In a joint statement, the three countries stressed that they will not support Washington's efforts to restore UN sanctions against Iran, "because this would negatively affect the United Nations Security Council."
"We will not support a resolution like this, which will be inconsistent with our current efforts to preserve the joint comprehensive plan of action (Iran's nuclear agreement)," the statement said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that the group of three European countries that are a party to the nuclear agreement believes that the agreement concluded is the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The three countries considered that the strategy of the American maximum pressure on Iran will not solve the differences with Tehran.
Ministerial meeting
Meanwhile, the three countries announced that they would hold a ministerial meeting to urge Iran to cooperate in resolving contentious issues over its nuclear program.
It considered that Tehran's refusal to allow IAEA inspectors to visit some of its nuclear facilities constituted an explicit threat to the global protection system.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution on Friday formally calling on Iran to allow the inspection of two suspected nuclear activities in the past.
This is the first resolution to criticize Iran over its nuclear program, voted by the United Nations agency since 2012. It was adopted during a meeting of the Board of Governors at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, in light of the escalation of tension over Iran's nuclear program in the past months.
The 35-nation board of governors of the IAEA approved the decision, in a vote opposed by China and Russia. Other countries abstained.
Iranian threat
On his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned the IAEA that any decision against his country would lead to the collapse of the nuclear agreement.
He added in a tweet that Tehran does not hide anything in its nuclear program, and that IAEA inspectors have worked in his country for the past 5 years.
Zarif called on the IAEA Board of Governors not to allow those whom he called "enemies of the nuclear agreement" to endanger Tehran's interests, and asked European countries not to be a tool to implement the plans to undermine the agreement, he said.
It is noteworthy that the nuclear agreement provides for a partial lifting of international sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran, in exchange for ensuring that it does not possess nuclear weapons.
The agreement was signed on July 14, 2015 in Vienna between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, China, Russia, France, and Britain), in addition to Germany.
But US President Donald Trump considered the agreement a "catastrophic" and announced his country's unilateral withdrawal from it on May 8, 2018, and decided to re-impose US sanctions on Iran.
A few months later, Iran went beyond the limits imposed on its reserves of low-enriched uranium, and thus began the phase of gradually abandoning its international obligations to compel Europeans to help them bypass US sanctions.