The European Union foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc still needs to consider the United States' demand of extending Iran's soon-to-expire arms ban and he cannot comment on their reaction before the due date.
"We have to think about it but for the time being I cannot explain you something that hasn't happened," Wall Street Journal quoted Borrell as saying on Twitter.
The United Nations arms embargo on Iran is set to expire in October as per the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The US has now launched a campaign to convince the security council to extend the ban indefinitely and has prepared a draft resolution to be put to a vote at the UN.
It has also threatened to trigger JCPOA's so-called "snapback" of all UN sanctions on Iran, if the resolution does not pass.
This is while US President Donald Trump officially pulled Washington out of the deal in 2018, calling it "the worst deal ever", and restored sweeping sanctions on Iran, hoping his maximum pressure would compel Iranian leaders to renegotiate a new deal.
Washington now argues that it remains an original "participant" under the UNSCR 2231, despite leaving JCPOA.
A UN resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the US, France or Britain to be adopted by the 15-member security council.
The European parties, France, Germany and Britain, have refused to adopt a stance so far while Russia and China have already expressed their opposition, saying the US has violated the resolution by exiting the nuclear deal and has no right to extend the embargo or trigger the return of UN sanctions.
Mistaken Idea
Earlier in an interview, Borrell rejected the US line of reasoning, saying it is "quite clear for us that the US are no longer a participating member in this agreement".
The plan to trigger the snapback mechanism has been criticized inside the US by those who argue that there is no guarantee the UN sanctions on Iran would be respected by member states, if restored.
Richard Nephew, who formerly ran the Iran desk at the American National Security Council, said the current US strategy is based on the mistaken idea "that the words on the paper matter more than the power dynamics behind them".
"[Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo seriously believes Russia and China will take this resolution being shoved down their throat as a reason not to export tanks," he said, according to the National Interest.
Richard Johnson, who oversaw JCPOA implementation at the US State Department until 2018, worried that snapback without other states' buy-in could erode the "credibility" of UN resolutions.
"There's a lot of times multilateralism is the best way or the only way to get things done … It's hard to build institutions. It's a lot easier to break them," he said.
