SULAIMANI (ESTA) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday stuck to his stance that Tehran must resume complying with the Iran nuclear deal before Washington, which abandoned the pact under former President Donald Trump, would do so.
Making his first public comments on Iran as the chief U.S. diplomat, Blinken reiterated President Joe Biden’s policy “that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing,” Reuters reported.
The nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was struck by Iran and six major powers in 2015 and committed Iran to restricting its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief from the United States and others.
Trump bolted from the deal negotiated under former president Barack Obama and instead slapped punishing sanctions. Iran responded by reducing its compliance with the JCPOA.
If Iran returns to the deal, Washington would seek to build what Blinken called a “longer and stronger agreement” that would deal with other “deeply problematic” issues.
He did not name these but Biden has said they include Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and its support for proxy forces in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
“Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts and it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance and time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations,” Blinken told reporters.
“We are not there yet, to say the least,” he added. He declined to say which U.S. official would lead talks with Iran but said “we will bring to bear different perspectives on the issue.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, however, demanded that the United States first come into compliance by ending the Trump sanctions, which included a sweeping effort to end Tehran’s key export of oil, according to AFP.
Iranian officials fear that the United States – where Trump’s Republican Party, narrowly in the minority in Congress, remains adamantly opposed to the nuclear deal – will not fulfill sanctions relief even if Tehran goes ahead.
