US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday evening that prospects for the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in the near future “are not looking good.”
“Iran seems either unwilling or unable to do what’s necessary to reach an agreement and they continue to try to introduce extraneous issues to the negotiations that make an agreement less likely,” Blinken said during a news conference in Mexico City.
The top US diplomat was in Mexico to advance talks on semiconductor supply cooperation and electric vehicle production. Speaking to reporters, Blinken answered questions about US support for Ukraine and ongoing efforts to secure a nuclear deal with Iran.
“What we’ve seen over the last week or so in Iran’s response to the proposal put forward by the European Union is clearly a step backward and makes prospects for an agreement in the near-term, I would say, unlikely,” he added, in comments reported by Bloomberg.
On Saturday, Blinken warned that Washington was “not about to agree to a deal that doesn’t meet our bottom-line requirements.”
The US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions, prompting Iran to abandon many of its own commitments in retaliation.
Source: Agencies
