Britain, France and Germany made a big mistake by triggering the snapback to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran, but Iran would be ready for an agreement if the Europeans reverse course, the Iranian foreign minister wrote in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
Abbas Araghchi wrote that the European trio, known as the E3, were “enabling the excesses of Washington” by following US President Donald Trump’s strategy, which he said had derailed the 2015 nuclear deal.
“The E3’s gambit lacks any legal standing, chiefly because it ignores the sequence of events that led Iran to adopt lawful remedial measures under the nuclear deal,” he said.
He argued that it was the United States, not Iran, that abandoned the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018, while Europe failed to deliver on promises to sustain trade and normalize economic relations.
“While failing to uphold its own obligations, Europe has expected Iran to unilaterally accept all restrictions,” he wrote, adding that the E3 “declined to condemn the US attack on my country in June – on the eve of diplomatic talks – and yet are now demanding UN sanctions on Iranians for supposedly rejecting dialogue.”
Araghchi warned that the sanctions push “will only further sideline them by eliminating [Europe] from future diplomacy, with broad negative consequences for all of Europe in terms of its global credibility and standing.”
But he also stressed that Tehran was open to negotiations on what he called “a realistic and lasting bargain.”
He wrote: “Iran remains open to diplomacy. It is ready to forge a realistic and lasting bargain that entails ironclad oversight and curbs on enrichment in exchange for the termination of sanctions.”
The minister said the alternative to diplomacy “may have consequences destructive for the region and beyond on a whole new level,” adding that Europe should “give diplomacy the time and space that it needs to succeed.”
Britain, France and Germany announced last month they had activated the “snapback” mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which would restore sanctions unless the Council votes otherwise within 30 days.
Araghchi said on Saturday that Tehran will not return to the negotiating table under the same conditions that existed before the June war with Israel.
The prime minister’s office said the committee, composed of relevant government agencies, will review information and reports pointing to corruption and suspicious operations in Iraq’s ports and territorial waters.
The US Treasury on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a vast network accused of blending Iranian oil with Iraqi crude and selling it as exclusively Iraqi, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Islamic Republic.
Washington said the network covertly blended Iranian and Iraqi oil through ship-to-ship transfers in the Persian Gulf and in Iraqi ports.
The sanctions target Waleed Khaled Hameed al-Samarra’i, based in the United Arab Emirates, along with his firms Babylon Navigation DMCC and Galaxy Oil FZ LLC, and nine Liberia-flagged tankers.
The Treasury estimated the operation generated about $300 million annually for both Iran and al-Samarra’i.
“Iraq cannot become a safe haven for terrorists, which is why the United States is working to counter Iran’s influence in the country,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“By targeting Iran’s oil revenue stream, Treasury will further degrade the regime’s ability to carry out attacks against the United States and its allies.”
The measures follow sanctions announced in July against another network accused of blending Iranian and Iraqi oil.
Two children were killed on August 5 in a village in northern Golestan province when a gas leak ignited as power was restored, the paper said.
Ten days later, two youths aged 16 and 18 in Fars suffocated after sheltering from the heat in a running car inside a garage; and a Tabriz resident died in an elevator-related accident as power disruptions multiplied,” according to Etemad.
“I wish we had never had electricity. It took the lives of my two children. They had just begun to live, had just stepped into society full of hopes and dreams. Suddenly, when the power came back, my house exploded. I came and saw the wall had collapsed on my daughter. Blood was coming from everywhere,” the bereaved mother said in a video shared after the Golestan blast.
Fatal incidents and urban hazards
Fire officials in Isfahan reported a 284% jump in elevator entrapments over a one-month period tied to outages. In the southwestern city of Yasuj, up to 20 people were trapped at once during blackouts, while reports from Khorramabad in west put such incidents at three to four times last year’s level, Etemad wrote.
Etemad interviewed 11 people across Yazd, Tehran, Ahvaz, Shiraz, Ardebil and Urmia, including patients with butterfly disease and people with spinal cord injuries.
A young woman in Shiraz said a routine 10-minute eye procedure stretched to over an hour because a surgical microscope repeatedly failed.
“Power fluctuations burned the microscope lamp in the middle of my eye surgery,” she said, adding that repeated replacements failed until the device was swapped out, leaving lasting damage to her right eye.
Patients with chronic conditions described blackouts as dangerous and costly. Frequent cuts forced daily dressing changes and purchases of pricier creams, A butterfly disease patient in Yazd said.
A man with a spinal injury in rural Urmia feared his anti-bedsore mattress would fail in surges: without it, he said, pressure ulcers were likely. Others said that when electricity goes, well pumps stop and mobile networks and home internet also drop, compounding risks for those needing help.
Strain on daily life and business
Shopkeepers and small businesses reported spoiled food and lost inventory; one confectioner filmed trays of discarded cakes, blaming a single outage for rent, labor and waste. Poultry farmers in Dezful, Khuzestan province, cited higher mortality and reduced chick placement amid daily cuts.
Etemad’s reporting underscores how prolonged outages—often four to five hours a day—are cascading through homes, clinics and city infrastructure. The accounts point to a growing public safety challenge where routine power cuts are now measured not just in inconvenience, but in injuries and deaths.
