NewsUSAUS stops prioritizing nuclear deal over Tehran's "unacceptable" demands

US stops prioritizing nuclear deal over Tehran’s “unacceptable” demands

Archive – Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Linhart (right) receives US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley – Michael Gruber/BMEIA via APA/dpa – File

The United States special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, believes that Iran has no intention of returning to the nuclear agreement it signed with the international community in 2015 — and right now practically suspended since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States in 2018 –, and has recommended that Washington focus on preventing Iranian arms supplies to Russia in the Ukraine war and supporting protesters during ongoing protests in the country.

“Iran is not interested in a deal and now we are focused on other things. We can make a difference in cutting off arms supplies to Russia and in trying to support the fundamental aspirations of the Iranian people” at protests against death in custody of the young Mahsa Amini for wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly, and which have resulted in between 200 and 400 deaths since September.

Talks for Iran’s return to the nuclear deal are virtually at a standstill. The Atomic Energy Nuclear Agency, the IAEA, denounced Iran’s impediments last month when examining its facilities while Tehran has requested an end to these visits as a condition, among other unacceptable conditions for the US, to return to the agreement.

“What’s the point of this? Why should we focus on this issue if Iran responds with unacceptable demands?” Malley asked in an interview with Bloomberg in Rome. “At this point”, she has confessed, we are not going to focus on the nuclear agreement because we cannot return to the table so that they play it all the time “.

Malley has specified that, although the talks between the European Union and the Iranian officials are still ongoing, as demonstrated by the conversation held this weekend between the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the Iranian Foreign Minister, Hosein Amirabdolahian, there have been no formal negotiations since late August.

The US will now focus on “disrupting, delaying and sanctioning” Iranian arms deliveries to Russia, the envoy said, before warning that if Iran attempts to build weapons facilities in Russia “it will be crossing new lines.”

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