(CU)_Iran is ready to renew its relations with the United States, but the time is running out, the Foreign Minister in Tehran says.
In an interview on CNN on Monday (Feb 1), Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the Biden administration has a “limited window of opportunity” to re-enter the 2015 nuclear agreement which was abandoned by former US President Donal Trump in 2018.
“The time for the United States to come back to the nuclear agreement is not unlimited,” Zarif said. “The United States has a limited window of opportunity, because President Biden does not want to portray himself as trying to take advantage of the failed policies of the former Trump administration.”
President Joe Biden, who was a part of the Obama administration which negotiated the nuclear deal formerly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has already expressed his desire to re-join the Agreement, noting that Trump had “recklessly tossed away” a deal that was working to keep America safe.
The deal was signed by Iran and six other nations in 2015, after two years of intensive negotiations orchestrated by the Obama administration. Under the Agreement, Tehran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges in the country by two-thirds, as well as to slash its stockpile of enriched uranium, and to cap the ongoing enrichment at 3.67%, an amount which is sufficient for energy provision but not enough to build a nuclear bomb.
In return, the six other nations party to the deal agreed to lift all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, which reconnected the country’s economy with international markets.
However, in January, Iran announced that it had resumed enriching uranium to 20% purity, which puts the Middle Eastern nation just a step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
The move was largely seen as Tehran’s response to Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal, as the Foreign Minister has said that his government’s action was “fully reversible” if other countries party to the agreement also fully complied with their commitments.
When inquired on how swiftly Iran could scale back its uranium enrichment program to comply with the nuclear deal if the US lifts sanctions, Zarif said, “8,000 pounds of enriched uranium can go back to the previous amount in less than a day.”
Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said the United States projects that it could be “a matter of weeks” before Tehran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon if it continues to lift restraints in the nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, Iran insists that it does not seek a nuclear weapon, and Zarif reiterated this on Monday, saying if Tehran wanted to build a nuclear weapon, it could have done so some time ago.
“[…] we decided that nuclear weapons are not, would not augment our security and are in contradiction to our, eh, ideological views. And that is why we never pursued nuclear weapons.” the Foreign Minister said.
Several officials in Washington have affirmed the intention of the United States to re-enter the agreement, but have expressed their concerns regarding the fact that Iran has become a more significant threat than in the early years of the JCPOA, especially with Tehran funding militias in countries like Yemen.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Iran’s ballistic missile capability has “advanced dramatically. “Their recklessness and sponsorship of terrorism in the region has not abated and in some areas has accelerated as well,” he noted.
However, Zarif has responded to these allegations saying Iran has acted in accordance with dispute mechanisms written into the JCPOA, while the United States also needs to stick to the original conditions of the deal.
“Is the United States prepared to reduce hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons it is selling to our region? Is the United States prepared to stop the massacre of children in Yemen if it wants to talk about the situation in Yemen?” he said.
Zarif said that both Tehran and Washington decided not to agree on certain things, not because they neglected them, but because the United States and its allies were not prepared to do “what was necessary”.
In the matter of who should take the first step in returning to the JCPOA, the Iranian Foreign Minister is of the view that it could be resolved by the European Union, which has expressed its willingness to rescue the 2015 deal.
Zarif said that the foreign policy chief of the EU, Josep Borrell, could put his “hat on” as coordinator for the Joint Commission of the JCPOA “and sort of choreograph the actions that are needed to be taken by the United States and the actions that are needed to be taken by Iran”.
