WASHINGTON, DC — A deal to restore the pact limiting
Iran’s
nuclear program is not imminent, but Washington is prepared to take “difficult
decisions” to make it happen, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Monday.
اضافة اعلان
Price told
journalists he could not discuss the specifics of the final remaining issues in
the 11 month-old negotiations over restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), which aims at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear
weapons.
“We are not in the
practice of negotiating in public,” Price said, amid reports that a deal is
close.
“We are prepared
to make difficult decisions to return Iran’s nuclear program to its JCPOA
limits,” he said.
For the US, he
said the main issues remain Iran committing to verifiable limits on its nuclear
activities, in return for an easing of punishing sanctions placed on the
country.
According to
sources close to the talks, Iran is insisting on “economic guarantees” in case
a future
US administration changes its stance and abrogates the agreement, as
president Donald Trump did in 2018; and that Washington remove its official
terror group designation on Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.
“We’re not going
to respond to specific claims about what sanctions we may or may not be
prepared to lift as part of a potential mutual return to compliance with the
JCPOA,” Price said.
He said the key US
negotiator,
Rob Malley, has not returned to Vienna to resume the most recent
round of negotiations.
“I want to be
clear that an agreement is neither imminent nor is it certain,” he said.
“In fact we are preparing
equally for scenarios with and without a mutual return to full implementation
of the JCPOA.”
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