GENEVA, Sept 19 (KUNA) -- Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh on Friday accused Germany, France and United Kingdom (E3) of "misusing the dispute resolution mechanism" embedded in the 2015 nuclear deal describing their snapback sanctions as "illegal and politically biased." Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Khatibzadeh said the Europeans "have no real commitment to negotiation and diplomacy--. Their attempts to misuse the mechanism in the JCPOA and to reimpose sanctions have no legal basis exactly as in 2020 when the previous US administration tried to trigger the snapback and failed." He explained that Iran has sent a letter to the United Nations and to the Security Council to clarify its legal position stressing that "Iran's response will be based on what is going to happen." Khatibzadeh also held Europeans responsible for "providing pretexts for international escalation" and described U.S. and European sanctions as "economic terrorism" and "state terrorism." The Iranian official underlined that his country "reserves all its rights to defend itself against this economic terrorism" emphasizing that "the window for diplomacy is open." However, he warned that "any European step toward triggering the snapback would deprive them of their last strategic card and make them irrelevant to Iran's file." He added that these unilateral sanctions have strongly affected the lives of ordinary people including in the health sector in Iran stressing that the United States "uses the economy as a weapon against independent states" which he called "a crime against humanity." Khatibzadeh further revealed that the Iranian Foreign Minister recently had consecutive telephone calls and talks with his counterparts in Germany France and the United Kingdom to "open new chances for diplomacy." "The Europeans chose escalation over solutions and they bear responsibility for the risks and tensions that could follow," he added. (end) imk.gb