Widespread UN sanctions against Iran have come back into force for the first time in a decade, after last-ditch nuclear talks with western powers failed to produce a breakthrough.
The sanctions, which came into effect late on Saturday and three months after Israel and the US bombed Iran, bar dealings related to Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles program and are also expected to have wider effects on its troubled economy.
European and US diplomats stressed immediately after the resumption of sanctions that diplomacy was not over.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, urged Tehran to “accept direct talks, held in good faith”.
He also called on UN member states to “immediately” implement sanctions to “pressure Iran’s leaders to do what is right for their nation and best for the safety of the world”.
The British, French and German foreign ministers said in a joint statement they would continue to seek “a new diplomatic solution to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon”.
They also called on Tehran “to refrain from any escalatory action”.
Iran has allowed UN inspectors to return to its nuclear sites, but the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the US had offered only a short reprieve in return for handing over its whole stockpile of enriched uranium, a proposal he described as unacceptable.
An 11th-hour effort by Iran’s allies Russia and China to postpone the sanctions until April failed to win enough votes in the security council on Friday, leading to the measures taking effect at midnight on Sunday GMT.
Germany, which triggered the return of sanctions alongside UK and France, had “no choice” as Iran was not complying with its obligations, the foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said.
“For us, it is imperative: Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon,” he told the UN general assembly.
“But let me emphasise: we remain open to negotiations on a new agreement. Diplomacy can and should continue.”
Russia made it clear it would not enforce the sanctions, considering them invalid.
The sanctions “finally exposed the west’s policy of sabotaging the pursuit of constructive solutions in the UN security council, as well as its desire to extract unilateral concessions from Tehran through blackmail and pressure,” the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.
Iran has long contended that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
The sanctions are a “snapback” of measures frozen in 2015 when Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear program under a deal negotiated by former US president Barack Obama.
The US already imposed massive sanctions, including trying to force all countries to shun Iranian oil, when Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in his first presidential term.
Iran and the US had held several rounds of Omani-brokered talks earlier this year before they collapsed in June when first Israel and then the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran recalled its envoys from UK, France and Germany for consultations on Saturday, state television reported.
“The current [economic] situation was already very difficult, but it’s going to get worse,” said an Iranian engineer who asked to be identified only by his first name, Dariush.
“The impact of the renewed sanctions is already evident: the exchange rate is increasing, and this is leading to higher prices,” the 50-year-old told AFP, lamenting a standard of living that is “much lower” than it was “two or three years ago”.
The dollar was trading at about 1.12m rials on the black market on Saturday, a record high according to several currency tracking websites.
The US already enforces unilateral sanctions on Iran and has put huge pressure on third countries to stop buying Iranian oil, although China has defied it.
Brussels-based thinktank International Crisis Group said Iran seemed dismissive of the renewed UN sanctions as it had already worked out how to cope with the US ones.
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,” it said.