Iran indicated it would not be interested in talks about changing “the terms” of its nuclear deal with U.S. authorities as the United States says, “The ball is in their court.”
“Once everybody implements their parts of the obligation, there will be talks, and those talks will not be about changing the terms of the agreement, regional issues, or missile issues. We’re not going to discuss those,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with state-run media, adding that he needs reassurance from the U.S. a deal will not be withdrawn following former President Donald Trump’s move to pull out the Obama-era accord.
During a Sunday interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, “It is Iran that is isolated diplomatically now, not the United States, and the ball is in their court.”
Sullivan added that the U.S. citizens being held in Iranian custody are a top priority in reaching an agreement between the two nations.
“We intend to very directly communicate with the Iranians about the complete and utter outrage, the humanitarian catastrophe that is the unjust, unlawful detention of American citizens in Iran,” he said.
US READY TO EMBARK ON ‘PROLONGED PATH’ BACK TO IRANIAN NUCLEAR DEAL
On Thursday, President Biden’s administration indicated a willingness for a meeting with Iranian leaders to ultimately renew the embattled deal.
“The United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a Thursday announcement.
“The goal of coming together would be to sit down and to start what could be a prolonged path of trying to get back to a situation where both the U.S. and Iran were back into compliance,” a senior State Department official told reporters Thursday evening. “But that’s not going to happen without a meeting, and therefore, we’d be prepared to sit down and talk about what are the steps that need to be taken to get back to that point, and then, as I said, build on that to broaden and strengthen the deal.”
In 2018, Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal, which put limits on Iran’s uranium production in an effort to curb the production of nuclear warheads, and instituted a series of sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation after he accused leaders of violating the accord. Biden on Thursday announced he would be withdrawing Trump’s penalties.
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“Iran has made a number of requests about the U.S. and its sanctions,” a State Department official said. “The Iranians have the expectation and the desire that the U.S. would take these steps in anticipation of any meeting, sort of as a prerequisite to or as a down payment … We’re prepared to talk about all these things, but let’s talk about them to work through them together, to see what we would need to do, and what they would need to do in order to get back to the point where we’re both in compliance.”
