US ready to make ‘tough decisions’ to revive Iran nuclear deal

A deal to restore the pact limiting Iran's nuclear program is not imminent, but Washington is prepared to take "difficult decisions" to make it happen, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Monday. Price told journalists he could not discuss the specifics of the final remaining issues in the 11 month-old negotiations over restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which aims at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. "We are not in the practice of negotiating in public," Price said, amid reports that a deal is close. For the United States, he said the main issues remain Iran committing to verifiable limits on its nuclear activities, in return for an easing of punishing sanctions placed on the country. "I want to be clear that an agreement is neither imminent nor is it certain," he said."In fact we are preparing equally for scenarios with and without a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA."

His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, in an unusually detailed and emotive statement, urged the US not to delist the IRGC as a terror organization. The US official said Saturday that Israel and America “share a common interest: seeing to it that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. We’ve been clear that a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA is the best diplomatic path forward and the best way to achieve this objective.”

According to sources close to the talks, Iran is insisting on “economic guarantees” in case a future US administration changes its stance and abrogates the agreement, as President Donald Trump did in 2019 and that Washington remove its official terror group designation on Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.