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Germany, France and the United Kingdom have made “decisional,” or final, preparations to retrigger United Nations sanctions on Iran, three European officials told CNN Wednesday.

The so-called “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal could be initiated as soon as Thursday. It takes 30 days for the process to be completed, and European leaders will use the intervening time to try to convince Tehran to return to the negotiating table.

European leaders will make a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avoid the reimposition of sanctions in talks with Iranian officials in Geneva on Tuesday, according to a source. But with little diplomatic movement in recent months, hopes of European success are low.

The Iran nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), included a provision in which participating members could reinstate UN sanctions should Iran break the terms of the agreement.

This snapback process was initiated by UNSC participants who remain part of the JCPOA — Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The power to reinstate the snapback will expire in October, European diplomats say, giving a sense of urgency to their actions.

After the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, Iran began expanding its nuclear program, exceeding JCPOA production limits.

The program is currently in “significant noncompliance” with the JCPOA, U.S. officials say, though they maintain that there is still no evidence of Tehran actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran denies that, but maintains the program is peaceful. Inspectors and analysts say, however, that its enriched uranium is on the cusp of becoming weapons grade.

“Iran is doing two or three things that we are very worried about. But going back to the original JCPOA would be almost impossible,” Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Wednesday.

“I can say that we’ve had some positive indications from them,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met with European counterparts on Iran Wednesday, said of recent diplomacy with Tehran. “The snapback is a very powerful piece of leverage on the Iranian regime.”

Inspectors Return

The parliament of Iran had earlier this month approved a bill that would see it stop working with international inspectors. But IAEA inspectors had returned to Iran in recent days to keep monitoring some of the country’s nuclear sites.

Inspectors were on the ground at the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Wednesday. Grossi confirmed this in a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.

“We are at Bushehr,” Grossi told reporters. “Today we are inspecting Bushehr. We are continuing the conversation so that we can go to all places, including the facilities that have been attacked.”

The IAEA’s safeguards are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran has not left, the head of the IAEA told reporters. Tehran has reportedly threatened to leave the NPT if UN sanctions are reinstated, however.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Reuters inspectors were present to monitor the replacement of fuel at the Bushehr power plant. A decision from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council permitted the monitoring, Araghchi said, but he denied a “new deal” for cooperation with the IAEA.

Recent Conflict

The nuclear facilities that Israel struck in early June began a 12-day conflict between Iran and the Jewish state. In a series of retaliatory attacks, Iran hit Israeli cities for the first time and USS Forrestal missile destroyers joined the fray in the closing hours, striking three Iranian sites.

The IAEA withdrew its inspectors in July after Iran’s nuclear sites were attacked. At the time, the agency cited the war-like environment and inability to monitor those sites.

In satellite images taken after those attacks, Maxar Technologies found that entrances to one of Iran’s Isfahan Nuclear Technology Research Centers had been damaged by missiles.

Iran charged that the IAEA provided Israel with a pretext to strike by publicizing the country’s non-compliance with agency safeguard regulations.

Domestic Divisions

Allowing IAEA inspectors to enter those facilities, as Iran has now done, was reportedly met with domestic criticism from some Iranian officials. Parliamentary member Kamran Ghazanfari railed against comments from Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, according to Iranian state media, that the parliament’s vote would not stop the agency’s inspection work.

Ghalibaf reportedly suggested the inspections could continue, with limited cooperation with the IAEA on certain facilities, so long as the agency was not able to monitor certain information or access certain sites. The limits on the IAEA’s work were among the stated points of contention in the parliamentary bill.

Iran’s parliament passed the bill following the June attack in which members of the Iranian parliament said it was a response to foreign aggression and a power grab by Israel through the IAEA.

Talks Ahead

European negotiators met with Iranian officials on Tuesday in Geneva in an eleventh hour diplomatic push to head off the snapback of sanctions. But diplomats from both sides suggested little progress had been made.

In the weeks leading up to the Israel-Iran conflict, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff was in Europe, working on a potential new nuclear agreement with Iran. Those talks ended with the outbreak of fighting.

The IAEA’s Grossi is attempting to walk a diplomatic tightrope in recent days, neither conceding defeat to nuclear inspectors nor pitting Iran and IAEA against one another. Still, he sees a last chance.

“Iran is a sovereign country and it is making a decision. But don’t forget that there is still time, even if there is the triggering thing, there is a month, and many things could happen,” he said.