A US Senior Administration Official told reporters on Friday that the seventh round of indirect negotiations with Iran “was better than it might have been,” but “worse than it should have been,” which leaves the US “in an uncertain position as to whether we can get to where we need to go in the short time that we have to get there.”

“Every day that goes by is just further proof and demonstration of how self-defeating the decision to withdraw from the JCPOA was,” the official said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“[It] left an Iranian nuclear program that is unconstrained.

“It left us with less visibility and monitoring of their program. And that’s why the first objective of the Biden administration is to see whether we can get back to mutual compliance.”

According to the official, “there was some modest progress.” The official said that thanks to the efforts of the Director-General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, “with a couple of others, including Russia, an agreement was reached that will allow the IAEA to re-install its cameras. That’s an important step, a welcomed step, but it’s not a step that we should exaggerate.”

“All of this takes place under the circumstance where time is running out because of the pace of Iran’s nuclear program,” the official continued.

“And the Secretary of State said many times that we cannot accept a situation where Iran is dragging its feet at the negotiating table and accelerating the pace with its nuclear program.”

“There’s going to have to be an acceleration,” the official said. “Iran will have to come back with a clear set of issues and a realistic position on how to resolve it. So, we made some progress, not enough certainty in a pace that it will not be sufficient to get to where we need to go.”

Source: Israeli media