• UN inspectors return, West demands more nuclear progress.
• Sanctions start Sunday, target nuclear, missile-linked entities.
• Pezeshkian rejects uranium deal, accuses West of pressure.

Iran was set to come under sweeping UN sanctions late Saturday for the first time in a decade — barring an unexpected last-minute breakthrough — after nuclear talks with the West floundered.

The UN nuclear watchdog on Friday said that inspectors had been allowed to return to Iranian sites, but Western powers did not see enough progress to agree to a delay after a week of top-level diplomacy at the UN General Assembly.

European powers set the clock ticking a month ago for the “snapback” of the UN sanctions, accusing Iran of failing to come clean on its nuclear program — including through countermeasures it took in response to Israeli and US bombing.

Iran on Saturday recalled its envoys in Britain, France and Germany for consultations, after the three European countries triggered the mechanism, Iranian state television said.

The sanctions are set to go into effect at 0000 GMT on Sunday (8:00pm on Saturday in New York).

They will set up a global ban on working with companies, people and organisations accused of developing Iran’s nuclear program or ballistic missiles.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said there was no reason to reach a deal when, in his view, Israel and the United States were seeking to use the pressure to topple the Islamic republic.

“If the goal had been to resolve concerns on the nuclear program, we could easily do that,” Pezeshkian told reporters, as he insisted again that Iran will never pursue nuclear weapons.

Pezeshkian, who met during the week with French President Emmanuel Macron, said France had proposed that Iran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in return for a one-month delay in the return of sanctions.

“Why would we put ourselves in such a trap and have a noose around our neck each month?” he said.

He accused the United States of pressing the Europeans not to reach a compromise.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s friend and roving negotiator, had said that the United States does not want to hurt Iran and was open to further talks.

But Pezeshkian charged that Witkoff lacked seriousness, saying he had backtracked on agreements during earlier talks — which abruptly stopped when Israel launched its military campaign.

No Russia enforcement

The sanctions are aimed at imposing new economic pain to pressure Iran, but it remains to be seen if all countries will enforce them.

Russian deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said Friday that Moscow, a top partner of Iran, considered the reimposition of sanctions “null and void.”

Russia and China sought at the Security Council Friday to delay the reimposition of sanctions until April but failed to muster enough votes.

The United States already has unilateral sanctions on Iran and has tried to force all other countries to stop buying Iranian oil, although companies from China have defied the pressure.

Trump imposed a “maximum pressure” campaign during his first term when he withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated under former president Barack Obama, which had offered sanctions relief in return for drastic curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

The new sanctions mark a “snapback” of the UN measures that were suspended under the 2015 deal, which had been strongly supported by Britain, France and Germany after Trump’s withdrawal.

The International Crisis Group, which studies conflict resolution, said in a report that Iran seemed dismissive of the snapback as it had already learned to cope with the US sanctions.

But it noted that the snapback was not easy to reverse as it would require consensus at the Security Council.

“It is also likely to compound the malaise around an economy already struggling with high inflation, currency woes and deepening infrastructure problems,” the report said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a defiant UN address Friday urged no delay in the snapback and hinted that Israel was willing to again strike Iran’s nuclear program, after the 12 days of bombing in June that Iranian authorities say killed more than 1,000 people.

Pezeshkian said that Iran would not retaliate against the sanctions by leaving the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, warning that unnamed powers were seeking a “superficial pretext to set the region ablaze.”

• US official says ongoing trade talks on positive track.
• Curbing Russian oil purchase crucial to reduce tariffs: negotiators.
• India needs more work to address US concerns: US official.

The United States trade negotiators have told their Indian counterparts that curbing purchases of Russian oil is crucial to reducing India’s tariff rate and sealing a trade deal, two people familiar with the talks told Reuters.

While trade negotiations are on a positive track, a US official said, more work is needed to ensure India addresses US concerns over market access, the trade deficit and purchases of Russian oil.

US President Donald Trump has sought to pressure India, the European Union and members of Nato to curb purchases of Russian oil as a way to cut Moscow’s revenue and hasten an end to the war in Ukraine.

The Trump administration has shown a willingness to use maximum leverage to advance its policy goals, as evidenced by it linking trade negotiations with India to demands that it curb Russian oil purchases.

Trump has expressed growing frustration over the slow progress toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, a conflict he pledged to resolve from his first day in office.

The US has imposed an extra 25% tariff on imports from India to pressure New Delhi to halt its purchases of discounted Russian crude oil, bringing total punitive duties on Indian goods to 50% and souring trade negotiations between the two democracies.

But Trump has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on Chinese imports over China’s purchases of Russian oil, as his administration navigates a delicate trade truce with Beijing.

India and China are the two largest buyers of Russian oil, which is already subject to numerous US sanctions that have constrained Moscow’s access to global markets.

In response, India has defended its oil imports, emphasising the economic benefits and accusing Western nations of hypocrisy for continuing trade with Russia despite sanctions.

Iran’s senior security official has stated that Tehran will terminate its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and cease participation in international weapons inspections if the ‘snapback’ mechanism is enforced and United Nations sanctions are re-imposed.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani made the remark in a September 22 interview with the PBS — the American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network.

“If ‘snapback’ mechanisms are enforced, we will end our participation with the IAEA,” he said.

Larijani reiterated Iran’s firm determination not to pursue a nuclear weapon — either now or in the future — and said the acts of aggression by the United States and Israel against three Iranian nuclear facilities in June had made negotiations a “farce”.

On Friday, the UN Security Council will convene to vote on a resolution proposed by Russia and China to postpone the reimposition of sanctions.

Should the council fail to approve the resolution, the United Nations ‘snapback’ sanctions will be triggered on Saturday.

On September 9, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reached an agreement on practical modalities to resume cooperation after a meeting in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.

It came after the Iranian Parliament unanimously passed legislation requiring the administration to suspend all cooperation with the IAEA following the Israeli-US aggression, which targeted three of the country’s nuclear sites in a clear violation of international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In August, the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal, namely Britain, France, and Germany, initiated a 30-day process to activate the so-called snapback mechanism in order to restore all UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. The countdown for re-imposing sanctions is set to expire by the end of September.

Iran has rejected the move as illegitimate, citing the US unilateral withdrawal from the deal – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the European trio’s decision to align with unlawful sanctions rather than fulfilling their obligations.

In the wide-ranging conversation with FRONTLINE in Tehran, Larijani said, “We have pursued every option and mechanism available for solving this conflict in a peaceful way.”

Larijani said he did not have “any specific information to share” about the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites hit by the American bombing or how much the strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear program.

The Iranian official, however, said, “In my opinion, Iran’s nuclear program can never be destroyed. Because once you have discovered a technology, they can’t take the discovery away. It’s as if you are the inventor of a certain machine, and the machine is stolen from you. You can still make it again.”

He also warned President Donald Trump of the United States that Iran will never surrender in case of new attacks.

Asked to comment about whether the US-Israeli strikes had disrupted the nuclear activity and if there was anything he could say about an underground site south of Natanz, known as Pickaxe Mountain, Iran’s security chief replied: “No, nothing. We haven’t abandoned any of those locations. But in the future they could possibly continue to run as they currently do or be shut down.”

Larijani said Iran expects the Americans to understand that the Islamic Republic is deserving of the same human rights which they proclaim for themselves and that should act with justice and morals in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.

He cautioned that the US behavior will cause the world to descend into chaos, with the negative consequences that follow.

“The American people did not wish to elect people who will send their soldiers to the grave. They should act properly, and desire for others what they want for themselves.”