(Washington) The United States on Saturday accused Iran of blocking negotiations to save the Iran nuclear deal while developing its atomic program, and warned that it will “not be able to accept” this attitude – without saying you might as well slam the door of discussions.
“Iran has failed to show the attitude of a country seriously thinking of a quick return” in the 2015 agreement supposed to prevent it from acquiring the atomic bomb, a senior official told reporters who had just taken part in the resumption of talks in Vienna.
The American observation matches that of the European negotiators.
These indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, which began in April before stopping in June following the election of a new ultra-conservative Iranian president, resumed Monday. They take place through the European Union, which coordinates the implementation of the text, and its other signatories, namely Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China.
According to the American official, while the United States has shown “patience” over the past five months, while the Islamic Republic was supposed to “prepare” to resume dialogue, the latter has in fact “continued to accelerate. its nuclear program in a provocative way ”.
And when she finally returned to Vienna, “it was with proposals which returned to all the compromises proposed by Iran” from April to June, in order to “benefit from all the compromises made by others and in particular United States, and demand more, ”he lamented.
“We cannot accept a situation in which Iran is accelerating its nuclear program while dragging its feet in its nuclear diplomacy,” insisted the official, reiterating a warning from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Other tools”
More than ever so far, Washington seems on the verge of leaving the negotiations and claims to be preparing “for a situation in which it is no longer possible” to save the agreement.
However, the official assured that the decision to disconnect the dialogue and implement a plan B whose outlines remain unclear, which would plunge the Middle East into an area of severe turbulence, has not yet been taken.
On the contrary, he said he hoped that Tehran will soon return to the talks “ready to negotiate in earnest” – – probably in the middle of next week, although the date has yet to be set by the European coordinator.
The agreement at the heart of all these efforts, presented as historic when it was concluded six years ago, imposed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in order to ensure, under the close surveillance of international inspectors, that it remained civilian and peaceful. In return, Iran had benefited from the lifting of draconian sanctions that stifled its economy.
Under the presidency of Donald Trump, who considered this compromise flawed and insufficient, Washington withdrew from it in 2018 and reinstated its sanctions against Tehran, which in response gradually freed itself from restrictions on its nuclear program.
Current US President Joe Biden has said he is ready to return to the agreement if Iran also returns to its commitments.
But his spring optimist has given way to increasingly obvious pessimism. So much so that the American government has been warning since the beginning of the autumn that it is ready to resort to “other options” in the event of a failure of diplomacy, leaving the threat of a recourse to military force hanging over. .
On Saturday, the senior American official once again estimated that while diplomacy was the preferred route of the Biden administration, “other tools” were also at his disposal.
If Iran does not fall into line, “we will have to resort to other tools, tools that you can imagine, to try to increase the pressure on Iran”, he launched, without more. details.