“We know that Iran still is spinning centrifuges. President [Joe] Biden has said very clearly, we will not allow Iran to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. Now, obviously, we'd prefer to achieve that outcome through diplomacy,” United States National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told Rudaw in an interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC.
“I don't see a path right now in the immediate future for return to diplomatic discussions about the nuclear deal,” he added.
Under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to curb its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for much-needed relief from crippling sanctions.
But the deal began unraveling in 2018, when Washington, under former president Donald Trump’s administration, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed biting sanctions on the Islamic republic, which in turn began stepping up its nuclear enrichment efforts.
Tehran, however, has repeatedly denied that it seeks to develop an atomic bomb, saying that such a move goes against the Islamic republic’s doctrine.
Efforts to revive the deal have stalled, with the current US administration under President Joe Biden labeling the deal as “dead.”
Kirby said that even under the newly elected president, Washington does not expect Iran to change its behavior regarding the deal.
“We’ll have to watch and see what he actually does. We've seen some of the things that he says, but I got to be honest with you. We're not expecting any major changes in Iranian behavior,” Kirby said.
Kirby noted that Iran is cooperating with regional foes of the United States in the Middle East, such as Palestinian Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Russia in its war in Ukraine. He added that the US needs to “continue to hold Iran accountable,” but there is little hope for change under Pezeshkian.
“There’s little expectation by the United States that Iranian behavior is really going to change that much, because we both know, there's one person that makes all the big decisions there,” Kirby said, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Pezeshkian, 69, emerged victorious from the run-off presidential election last week, with over 53 percent of the votes, besting his ultraconservative rival Saeed Jalili. The election went to a run-off after none of the candidates gained an absolute majority in the first round.
The vote was originally scheduled for 2025, but it was brought forward after former president Ebrahim Raisi died in May in a helicopter crash alongside several companions including late Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Written by Azhi Rasul
Interview by Diyar Kurda
