WASHINGTON — Iran didn’t show seriousness in the latest talks to rejoin a 2015 accord restraining its nuclear program, and the U.S. is preparing for a scenario in which restoring the deal won’t be possible, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.
It was the most pessimistic American assessment of the negotiations yet.
In the seventh round of talks last week, Iran walked back many offers it made in previous sessions and demanded sanctions relief that goes beyond the terms of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official told reporters. Former President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, and the Biden administration wants to rejoin it.
Iran went into the latest talks calling for the removal of all sanctions that it says violated the deal and prevent it from gaining the promised economic benefits.
Iran’s strategy appears to be to race ahead with nuclear advances to get more leverage in the talks, said the official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. That strategy will backfire and even Iranian allies such as Russia and China were disappointed by its stance, the official said.
The comments were the Biden administration’s most pessimistic public assessment of the talks to date, and aligned with remarks from European Union officials after the latest round. U.S. officials say they want to return to the 2015 accord, but they demand that Iran end its enrichment of uranium to high levels and other activities that it began in violation of the agreement after Trump quit the deal and reinstated punishing sanctions.
The negotiations in Vienna were the first since the election in June of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose government has aired far greater skepticism about a return to the talks than its predecessor.