President Biden’s special envoy for Iran said on Tuesday that time is running out to negotiate a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, and warned of an “escalating crisis” if the agreement isn’t restored.
“At some point in the not-so-distant future, we will have to conclude that the JCPOA is no more, and we’d have to negotiate a wholly new different deal, and of course we’d go through a period of escalating crisis,” special envoy Robert Malley told CNN.
Since JCPOA negotiations restarted in Vienna, the US and its European allies involved in the talks have been accusing Iran of not taking the process seriously. The US wants Iran to accept a deal that was negotiated with the previous Iranian government, but Tehran put forward new proposals and wants more sanctions relief.
Judging by Malley’s comments, the US doesn’t seem interested in negotiating the Iranian proposals. “If they continue at their current pace, we have some weeks left but not much more than that, at which point, I think, the conclusion will be that there’s no deal to be revived,” he said.
Malley said Iran was trying to gain leverage over the US by advancing its nuclear program. “It seems very clear [Iran] is trying to build leverage by expanding their nuclear program and hoping to use that leverage to get a better deal,” he said.
The only recent advancement made during the renewed negotiations was Iran’s use of new centrifuges at its Fordow nuclear facility. The US tried to spin this as an attempt at gaining leverage, but Iran’s plans to upgrade centrifuges were set in motion long before the negotiations were scheduled.
The Vienna talks are currently on pause but are expected to resume soon. While the US has had nothing but negative things to say about the negotiations, Iranian officials have been upbeat. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the parties involved in the talks agreed to build upon Iran’s new proposals.
“The parties have agreed on two new texts, the result of intense discussions in recent days in Vienna,” Khatibzadeh said. “These are documents in which Iran’s position has been taken into account … and on the basis of which we can continue future discussions.”
Talk about projection. That was the explicit goal of the U.S. ‘maximum pressure’ campaign as we imposed our embargo on Iran and stole their overseas assets.
All Iran wants is the original deal. We want to add, disarmament and ‘(Israeli sanctioned) regional bad behavior’ to it.
Well said. The squeeze is on…
We don’t want a deal, at least not on terms that any sovereign country could agree to.
That is because Saudi Arabia and Israel do not want a deal. Take them out of the equation and we could not care less.
What Iran would ideally like is to be treated fairly without having to make a deal. Failing that, the deal is a compromise. But if it doesn’t help them, they’ll ditch it and prepare their defences.
The world seems to have forgotten about our act of piracy.
“… and of course we’d go through a period of escalating crisis,” special envoy Robert Malley told CNN.
Who is “we”, Bob?… The Iranians don’t seem all that perturbed or eager to make a deal. Why would they?
The escalating crisis is wholly owned by US.
And completely controlled by israel.
We really need to figure out if we want to continue to waste a large amount of our trillions of “defense” dollars in the ME or if we want to waste most of it in China and Russia confrontations … this dilly dallying is not helpful …
Three wars at once…for the military-industrial complex and the neocons, that’s a feature, not a bug.
What a bonanza …
I predict the military budget for 2023: $1 trillion (so I over shot, the MIC budget for 2023 should come in at $800-850 billion)
Adding the budgets of the surveillance and spook agencies means the war annual war budget exceeds $1t.
Again: “That ain’t gonna happen.” The JCPOA is dead as a door nail and everyone is just going through the motions before the war.
Instead of “demanding”, they should actually negotiate.
Really, the word “negotiate” shouldn’t be used in anything that the US is involved in.
Apologizing to the Iranians is what is required by Americans.
If time is running out, then the US should finally rejoin the Deal as Biden said he would a year ago.
Liar, blaming Iran for the inevitable consequences of their own lies.
Lies. The US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and should unilaterally return to the original agreement without any negotiations.
Just lift the sanctions with a snapback provision of one year
contingent on IAEA certification of enrichment activity decline, done.
That’s how easy it would be if these were good faith negotiations.