by Thierry Meyssan

Thierry Meyssan had already drawn his readers’ attention to the bias of the United Nations Secretariat. Here, he revisits the controversy between Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and Russia, Iran, and China regarding the coherence of international law. This is not about technical legal issues, but rather about either the superiority of the Western perspective or the hierarchy of international norms.

Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 12 November 2025

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Jean-Noël Barrot, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While the world’s attention is focused on war zones, it remains unaware of what is happening at the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency: Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have developed an aberrant legal argument claiming they have the right to reinstate the sanctions imposed on Iran by Resolution 1737 (December 23, 2006), which were subsequently repealed by Resolution 2231 (July 20, 2015). Even though Russia and China have repeatedly stated that only the Security Council has the authority to impose sanctions, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom persist in claiming this right, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres has aligned himself with their position.

Let’s recall the context of this affair: in 1972, French President Georges Pompidou took the initiative to create an international company for uranium enrichment to supply future nuclear power plants. This was Eurodif, with the participation (in addition to France) of Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, soon joined by Spain and Sweden.

In 1974, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac pledged to deliver five Franco-American nuclear power plants to the Iran of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In this context, he brought Iran into Eurodif’s capital. But France refused to honor its commitments when the Shah fled and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini succeeded him. The dispute was settled in 1988 by Jacques Chirac, who had become President of the French Republic.

Beyond the situation into which the claims of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have plunged the Iranian people, this controversy harks back to the methods of the former colonial powers. We must bear in mind that the main victim of the First World War was neither France (10.5% of the population), nor Germany (9.8%), nor Austria-Hungary (9.5%), but Iran (25 to 30%). Not that Iran was a major theater of war, but because the British decided to starve its population to halt the Soviet advance. They thus caused the deaths of 6 to 8 million people [1]. This way of doing things, which characterized British colonialism particularly in India and China, is perpetuated with the "unilateral coercive measures" of the West, which they abusively call "sanctions", as if they had been decided after an adversarial debate before the Security Council

Relations between Iran and Western Europeans deteriorated sharply when, in 2005, Revolutionary Guard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of the Islamic Republic. He had the ambition to master nuclear fusion, which would have freed developing states from their energy dependence.

We should remember Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2011 statements: “The first thing to do is to prevent them [militant Islamic regimes] from obtaining nuclear weapons. That is our first mission, and the second is to find a substitute for oil.” [2] This way of speaking reflects the Western interpretation of Iran’s efforts to train not just a few scientists, but an entire generation of nuclear technicians and scientists. From the outset, Westerners viewed Iranian nuclear know-how both as preparation for acquiring “the” bomb and, far more seriously, as a Third World revolution against Western technological superiority.

Let us return to the approach taken by Germany, France, and the United Kingdom: on August 28, 2025, Johann Wadephul, Jean-Noël Barrot, and David Lammy, the foreign ministers, wrote to the Secretary-General of the United Nations that, in violation of Annex I of the JCPOA, since 2019, “Iran has, among other things, exceeded the limits to which it freely committed itself regarding enriched uranium, heavy water, and centrifuges; has ceased to allow the IAEA to conduct verification and monitoring activities under the JCPOA; and has abandoned the implementation and ratification of the Additional Protocol to its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement” [3].

In response, on the same day, Sergey Lavrov, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, and Wang Yi, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and China, respectively, wrote to all member states of the United Nations General Assembly [4]. They recalled the hierarchy of norms: the JCPoA (July 14, 2015) is inferior to Security Council resolution 2231 (July 20, 2015).

They also observed that after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and violated its commitments, Iran, like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, took measures contrary to this treaty, but did not challenge Resolution 2231. Therefore, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are not entitled to invoke the JCPOA, which they themselves do not respect, to demand sanctions against Iran.

They note that Germany, France, and the United Kingdom expressed, in January 2020, their commitment to the JCPOA [5] and their regret that Iran had resumed uranium enrichment to 60% in response to the US withdrawal from and violation of commitments, as well as the Pentagon’s assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. However, they did not convene the dispute resolution mechanism (Joint Commission) provided for in the JCPOA. Consequently, contrary to their claims, Berlin, Paris, and London did not do everything in their power to resolve the conflict and—even without considering the aforementioned hierarchy of norms—are therefore not authorized to reinstate the previous sanctions.

This controversy has continued to escalate since then, culminating in the Security Council meetings of September 19 and 26, 2025. However, the United Nations communications service published two false reports of these meetings, falsely claiming that “the Security Council endorsed the return of UN sanctions against Iran” [6]. Subsequently, the Secretary-General issued a misleading diplomatic note ordering the reinstatement of these sanctions [7].

However, things did not end there. Russia first sent a letter to António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, to remind him of his obligations [8]. Then, along with China and Iran, it addressed Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All three wrote to him, not citing Security Council Resolution 2231, but the one adopted by the Agency’s Board of Governors on December 15, 2015 [9]. Their reasoning remains the same: there is a hierarchy of norms that recognizes the supremacy of Security Council resolutions over treaties, even multilateral ones. Moreover, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, “which have themselves violated the commitments they made under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and resolution 2231 (2015), and which have not exhausted the procedures established within the framework of the dispute settlement mechanism, have no legitimacy to invoke its provisions.” In doing so, they notify Rafael Grossi that all the measures provided for by resolution 2231 have been completed since October 18, 2025. “This termination ends the obligation on the IAEA Director General to report on the verification and monitoring activities carried out under this resolution.”

Make no mistake: if these three states persist in their absurd interpretation of Resolution 2231 and attempt to impose it on the IAEA, they will be the ones jeopardizing its very survival. In June, Rafael Grossi risked destroying it by allowing himself to be misled by an artificial intelligence that contradicted the observations of his inspectors. He endorsed the idea that Iran was on the verge of developing an atomic bomb, justifying the "Twelve Days War," before retracting his statement [10].

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

     

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The author of this article was an advisor to President Ahmadinejad.

[1] The Great Famine & Genocide in Iran, 1917-1919, Mohammad Gholi Majd, University Press of America (2013).

[2] « A World View Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu », Channel 2, YouTube, 2011.

[3] “Letter from Jean-Noël Barrot, David Lammy and Johann Wadephul stating that Iran is not respecting its commitments to the JCPoA”, by David Lammy, Jean-Noël Barrot, Johann Wadephul, Voltaire Network, 28 August 2025.

[4] “Letter from Wang Yi, Seyed Abbas Araghchi and Sergei Lavrov on the disruption of the JCPoA”, by Sergey Lavrov , Seyed Abbas Araghchi , Wang Yi, Voltaire Network, 28 August 2025.

[5] “E3 statement on the JCPoA”, Voltaire Network, 12 January 2020.

[6] “Security Council Fails to Adopt Resolution that Would Continue Iran Sanctions Relief”, “Security Council Fails to Adopt Resolution Extending Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s Nuclear Programme”, United Nations, September 19 and 26, 2025.

[7] “General Secretariat reinstates sanctions against Iran”, UN (General Secretariat) , Voltaire Network, 27 September 2025.

[8] “Russia calls on the UN to lift sanctions against Iran, which violate Security Council decisions”, by Vasily Nebenzya , Voltaire Network, 29 September 2025.

[9] « Lettre de la Chine, de l’Iran et de la Russie à l’AIEA », Réseau Voltaire, 30 octobre 2025.

[10] “Behind the "12-Day War"”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 1 July 2025.