Attempts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal will fail unless President Joe Biden can guarantee that the U.S. will not again walk...
Attempts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal will fail unless President Joe Biden can guarantee that the U.S. will not again walk away from an agreement, said the head of the country's Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday.
Biden arrived back at the White House in the early hours, after discussing how to handle Iran with other world leaders at the G20 summit over the weekend.
He said the U.S. would only renege on a deal if Iran did not meet its commitments.
But Ali Shamkhani, one of the country's most senior security figures who is seen as a modernizer and moderate, suggested that was not good enough and that talks would only succeed if Biden could guarantee he would not abandon a deal.
'The U.S. President, lacking authority, is not ready to give guarantees. If the current status quo continues, the result of negotiations is clear,' he wrote in a tweet.
Iran and six world powers began talks in Vienna in April to reinstate the deal, which President Donald Trump abandoned three years ago.
They were suspended after anti-Western hardliner Ebrahim Raisi won presidential elections in June.
Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Iran's Supreme National Security Council of Iran, said nuclear talks were doomed to fail without Biden guarantees he would not walk away from a deal
President Joe Biden said on Sunday that the U.S. would make Iran pay 'economically' if they do not restart negotiations on resuming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
But negotiations are expected to resume later this month.
Biden and three European leaders signaled that they were ready to return to the 2015 deal, if Iran limited its nuclear program and opened itself up to Inspections.
But their joint statement also made clear they would not ease sanctions until Tehran had begun drawing down on work that the international community believes is directed a developing nuclear weapons.
'This will only be possible if Iran changes course,' Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a joint statement.
'We call upon Raisi to seize this opportunity and return to a good faith effort to conclude our negotiations as a matter of urgency.
'That is the only sure way to avoid a dangerous escalation, which is not in any country's interest.'
In reaction to Trump's reimposition of sanctions, Tehran breached the deal by rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
A major sticking point in Vienna has been over Iran's requirement for the United States to give guarantees that it would not renege on the nuclear agreement in the future.
Biden spoke with world leaders at the G20 in Rome, Italy on Saturday about continued commitments to diplomacy in Iran. L-R: U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joe Biden
Biden campaigned in 2020 on returning to the Iran nuclear agreement and criticized Trump's decision during his Europe trip.
'We're continuing to suffer from the very bad decisions President Trump made to pull out of the JCPOA,' he said at press conference at the G20 in Rome, using the acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
He was also asked whether his administration will respond if Iran launches drone strikes or other provocation.
He answered: 'We are going to continue to respond.'
Biden spent much of his six-day Europe trip - to Rome and Glasgow - hammering the message that America was back, and ready to take on a position of global leadership.
He promised to lead by example on climate change as he sought to reverse negative perceptions about the U.S. role after Trump had angered some allies with his American First foreign policy.
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