Tehran has submitted its latest response in the ongoing negotiations to restore the Iran nuclear deal - and the United States is slamming it as a “not at all encouraging” step “backwards,”
Politico reports.
The negative reaction from the Biden administration - as well as European sources - suggests that a revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement is not imminent as some supporters of the deal had hoped, despite roughly a year and a half of talks.
“We are studying Iran’s response, but the bottom line is that it is not at all encouraging,” a senior Biden administration official told POLITICO on Thursday evening.
The official declined to give specifics about what the Iranians had proposed, but added, “based on their answer, we appear to be moving backwards.”
A European diplomat agreed with this negative assessment and said that the Iranian response looked “negative and not reasonable.” Another person familiar with the situation simply added that the Iranian reply did “not look good at all.”
It’s not clear how much longer the various parties involved will be willing to keep negotiating, though neither Iran nor the U.S. is likely to permanently rule out diplomacy. The Biden administration official did not respond to questions about whether the U.S. would walk away from the talks given the latest Iranian response.
The politics of the nuclear talks are sensitive in both Iran, where hardliners have been ascendant in the Islamist regime that rules the country, as well as the U.S. Earlier Thursday, for instance, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden raising concerns about aspects of the negotiations.
A deal to restore the 2015 agreement will likely face a review in Congress. But with midterm elections coming up in November, many Democrats in particular may want to avoid an Iran debate in the weeks immediately prior.
“With this opportunity squandered, it is now hard to imagine that a deal can happen before the midterms,” said Ali Vaez, a top analyst with the International Crisis Group.
With midterm elections coming up in the U.S., it’s possible that talks could stall until after those races are finished in November.
Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday evening.
