Iranian President says US ‘dragging feet’ over nuclear deal
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Hashim Sheikh
- . October 26, 2022
- . Update: November 11, 2022 1:23 am
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, accused the United States of “dragging their feet” instead of deciding to revive the 2015 nuclear deal or JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
The Iranian President reportedly said, “Today, it is the Americans who have to make a decision, but they are delaying and dragging their feet.”
Earlier this month, White House spokesman John Kirby said that a return to the nuclear deal is unlikely in the near future. Kirby reportedly said that Washington is currently “focused” on authorities in Iran being “accountable for what they are doing” to the protesters in the country.
The 2015 agreement with world powers gave Iran sanctions relief in return for restricting its nuclear programme. However, the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, withdrew Washington from the deal in 2018. Trump also reimposed swinging economic sanctions on Iran.
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Since April 2021, various meetings and talks have been held to revive the deal. The European Union (EU) has also made significant efforts to get Iran and the US back to the negotiation table under the administration of the current US President Joe Biden.
The talks for the revival of the nuclear deal were affected when Iran demanded that the US remove the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations.
In April this year, Raisi said that reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers would not make sense unless the United Nations nuclear watchdog put an end to its investigation of undeclared sites in the country.
Earlier this month, the United States and other Western countries imposed fresh sanctions on Iran over its reaction to the protests, sparked by the death of the 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, on September 16. The EU also imposed sanctions on 11 Iranian officials and four entities.
