US, Europeans Warn Time Is Running Out on Iran Talks

Talks down to a matter of weeks without 'urgent progress'

US and European officials are warning that without some urgent progress, it is merely a matter of weeks before the Iran nuclear talks would be declared a failure. Iran has long rejected artificial deadlines on the talks.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says this is a “decisive moment” that will decide whether or not the US can work on returning to the agreement.

The galling part of this is that the US has offered next to nothing to this process, with Iran taking the simplest platform of restoring the 2015 deal and the US actually delivering what it promised but never delivered the first time.

The US has mostly sat stone-faced at the meetings, never offering concrete proposals, and spurning Iran’s suggestion that they’d like to see the US commit to staying in the deal this time around. All the US has done is try to make deadlines, when Iran has nothing to agree to in the talks.

Months of warning that time is almost up is a bad sign on US intentions, and Israel constantly demanding new issues be added to the talks is troubling when they can’t even agree to the terms of a nuclear deal they already agreed to years ago.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.