Newsman: The United States is ready for nuclear talks with Iran.US is prepared to hold talks with other world powers and Iran to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, marking a first step in a possible diplomatic deal in which Washington could re-enter the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, The Biden administration said Thursday.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement,The U.S. would be prepared to accept an invitation from the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to attend a meeting of the countries that signed the 2015 nuclear agreement — Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran — “to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Senior State Department officials told reporters that the announcement represented not a breakthrough but merely a first step on a potentially long, demanding diplomatic effort.
“I think we recognize that this is just a very first initial step to say that we are prepared to attend the meeting that would be convened by the E.U.,” a senior State Department official said.
“We recognize that that’s not in and of itself a breakthrough. Even the first meeting itself may not be a breakthrough,” the official said. “But it is a step. Until we sit down and talk, nothing’s going to happen.”
There was no immediate response from Iran.
The senior State Department official suggested that it was up to the Iranians whether they would accept the E.U. invitation.
“We’ll find out, I assume in the coming days, whether they are prepared to join a meeting that the E.U. would convene. Of course, our hope is that they would, but we’ll just have to wait and see,” the official said.
Asked whether the Biden administration had spoken to Iranian officials over the past several weeks leading up to Thursday’s announcement, the senior official declined to answer directly.
“I’m not going to get into, sort of, the logistics of exactly who we spoke to,” the official said.
The State Department announcement came hours after a joint statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British, French and German counterparts following talks Thursday. In the statement, Blinken signaled that the U.S. would be “prepared to engage in discussions with Iran” about both countries’ returning to compliance with the nuclear deal.
The three European foreign ministers “welcomed the United States’ stated intention to return to diplomacy with Iran as well as the resumption of a confident and in-depth dialogue between the E3 and the United States,” according to the statement.
The joint U.S.-European statement Thursday also included a stern warning to Iran not to follow through on its threat to block U.N. inspectors next week from gaining access to various nuclear sites, a crucial pillar of the deal. Iran’s Parliament adopted a law in November setting a deadline of Feb. 21, which is Sunday, to expel inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, if the U.S. fails to lift sanctions.
“The E3 and the United States are united in underlining the dangerous nature of a decision to limit IAEA access, and urge Iran to consider the consequences of such grave action, particularly at this time of renewed diplomatic opportunity,” the statement said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the Europeans must abide by their own commitments and “demand an end to Trump’s legacy of Economic Terrorism,” arguing that Iran’s actions were responses to U.S. and European “violations” of the accord.
“Remove the cause if you fear the effect,” he tweeted shortly after the Western allies released their joint statement. “We’ll follow ACTION w/ action.”
Early Friday, Zarif tweeted that Iran would “reverse all remedial measures” if the U.S. lifts sanctions on his nation.
Amid Western warnings, the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, was due to visit Tehran on Saturday to try to persuade Iran to hold off. Grossi planned to hold discussions with Iranian officials “to find a mutually agreeable solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country,” said Fredrik Dahl, an agency spokesman.
Under the nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to snap inspections and monitoring of its nuclear work by the IAEA.
A European diplomat described the joint E3-U.S. statement as “more carrot than stick,” as it urged Iran to halt uranium enrichment that exceeded limits set out in the 2015 deal and not to follow through on threats to cut off the IAEA inspections.
Iran’s threat to bar U.N. inspectors is one of a series of moves that appear intended to ramp up pressure on Washington to move quickly to re-enter the agreement and lift the sanctions, which have devastated Iran’s economy, according to European diplomats and former U.S. officials.
A rocket attack on a U.S.-led coalition base in the northern Iraqi town of Erbil on Monday, which killed a civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member, also threatened to complicate Western diplomatic efforts. The incident carried echoes of previous rocket assaults by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. targets, but the Biden administration has said it remains unclear who was behind the attack and whether Iran had any role in orchestrating it.
Senior State Department officials told reporters that the U.S. was also lifting additional travel restrictions that the Trump administration imposed on Iran’s U.N. mission in New York. The step will restore the status quo that existed before the Trump administration’s actions, which severely limited the movement of Iranian diplomats in New York.
“Today’s actions return our long-standing posture with regard to Iran at the U.N. and in our view will strengthen our ability to work with allies and partners in the U.N. Security Council to address Iran’s nuclear program and other destabilizing activities,” a senior State Department official told reporters.
