U.S. warns it has ‘tools’ to deal with Iran if nuclear talks fail

Representatives from Iran, left, and the United Kingdom, right, attend a meeting on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on Dec. 3. (E.U. Delegation in Vienna/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. warns it has ‘tools’ to deal with Iran if nuclear talks fail

Washington Post – By Karen DeYoung– Dec 4th 2021

The United States is “making decisions” and preparing “for a world in which there is no return” to the Iran nuclear deal, a senior State Department official said Saturday, following last week’s disappointing negotiations over resuming the 2015 accord.

“We’ve been waiting patiently for five and a half months” since Tehran suspended talks in June, the official said. “The Iranian government said it needed time to get ready.”

“What we’ve seen over the last week or so is what getting ready meant for them . . . it meant continuing to accelerate their nuclear program in particularly provocative ways” to gain leverage in extracting unreasonable concessions far beyond the scope of the original agreement, the official said.

European and Iranian officials have said they expect to return to the negotiating table next week.

But the “date of resumption matters far less to us than if Iran is prepared to come back with a serious attitude,” the senior official said. “So far what we’ve seen . . . unfortunately suggests the opposite.”

While it has not ruled out military action, the Biden administration has emphasized that it, along with partners in Europe, has a number of what the official called “tools” to deploy if Iran refuses to come back into compliance with the agreement.

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