The White House claims that the U.S. is "close" to sealing a deal with Iran to revive a 2015 nuclear pact despite Iranian leaders criticizing its delays.
On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that U.S. negotiators are "close" to sealing a deal to revive a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and a handful of world powers. The Iran nuclear deal was a major foreign policy breakthrough for the Obama administration, with then Vice President Joe Biden supporting the deal, but was later rejected by former President Donald Trump.
According to the Washington Times, U.S. and Iranian diplomats have been negotiating for months in Vienna, Austria to close a deal that will re-establish limitations on Iran's nuclear programs in exchange for lifting economic sanctions re-imposed by former President Trump after the U.S. left the agreement. Iran cited the withdrawal of the U.S. and has been "aggressively violating limits on uranium enrichment," and other limitations set in the 2015, the report said.
"Our view is that we are close. We have been close for some time now," Psaki said on Thursday. "We also know from having been through these negotiations before that the end of the negotiations is always when the difficult and challenging parts of the conversation typically take place."
Psaki's confirmation comes hours after French officials warned that time is running out to close the deal. Both the U.S. and its European allies rejected Iran's stalling in the effort to revive the agreement. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said, "We are very close to an agreement but the window of opportunity is closing."
However, it appears that the U.S. and Iran are still in disagreement over the latter's nuclear deal. According to Reuters, Iran suggested that there were new obstacles in the talks and that the U.S. is claiming that there were hard issues still to be tackled. The developments come as Russia issued several demands.
The report said that last week, preparations were already being made for a conclusion on the U.S.-Iran deal that would place restrictions on Iran's rapidly increasing nuclear activities. But last Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued demands that guaranteed Russian trade with Iran would not be affected by sanctions imposed on them for President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. rejected the demands from Russia, which angered Iran and helped propel the two countries closer to sealing the deal. But public comments by Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday implied that Iran had changed its mind.
"US approach to Iran's principled demands, coupled with its unreasonable offers and unjustified pressure to hastily reach an agreement, show that US isn't interested in a strong deal that would satisfy both parties," Ali Shamkhanil, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Twitter on Thursday morning. "Absent US political decision, the talks get knottier by the hour."
Meanwhile, State Department spokesperson Ned Price downplayed this, reiterating that the U.S. has no intentions of accommodating Russia's request and is instead focused on sealing the deal. Price confirmed, "We remain close to a possible deal. It's really down to a very small number of outstanding issues. But the reason these particular issues are outstanding is because they are among the most difficult ones."
