US Envoy for Iran launched on Friday fresh threats against Iran by saying that Tehran was approaching the “point of no return” for reviving a nuclear deal.

Robert Malley said Iran risked making it “impossible” to gain any benefit from resuming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which has been on hold since the US withdrew from it in 2018.

This past week, with Iran set for talks with world powers in Vienna on November 29, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran increased its uranium stockpile.

“The time will come if Iran continues at this pace with the advancements they’ve made, [Iran] will make it impossible even if we were going to go back to the JCPOA to recapture the benefits,” Malley told the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain.

“Iran’s advances are spreading alarm across the region… that’s what’s making the clock tick faster and making all of us say that the time is short for a return to the JCPOA,” Malley added.

Talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA began in Vienna in April between Iran and the remaining members of the nuclear deal, namely the UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany.

There was a hiatus in the nuclear talks after the new Iranian administration took office in August.

The US left the JCPOA in 2018 and restored the economic sanctions that the accord had lifted. Tehran retaliated with remedial nuclear measures that it is entitled to take under the JCPOA’s Paragraph 36.

The current negotiations examine the potential of revitalization of the nuclear deal and the US’ likely return to it.

Struck in 2015, the JCPOA was the agreement under which Iran agreed to clear limits on its nuclear activities in return for an easing of sanctions.

Source: Agencies