President Joe Biden’s administration is “pleased” that the European powers have dropped the plan to censure Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting. Earlier this week, France spearheaded a European effort to condemn Iran’s recent nuclear activities at a summit hosted by the IAEA, the Vienna-based U.N. atomic watchdog.
“We are pleased with the outcome of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting with respect to Iran,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said, hoping to restart nuclear talks with Tehran following the European decision. “We will look forward with strong interest for Iran’s willingness to engage in a way that leads to credible, concrete progress,” Price added.
Since President Donald Trump left the White House, Iran has ramped up its enrichment of uranium, the key ingredient in a nuclear bomb, and hindered the IAEA inspectors from visiting its sites.
The Radio Free Europe0n Friday reported the Biden administration’s response:
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on March 4 said Washington was “pleased” the Europeans withdrew the measure criticizing Iran, after Tehran reportedly gave some “encouraging signs” about the future of the landmark 2015 nuclear pact.”We will look forward with strong interest for Iran’s willingness to engage in a way that leads to credible, concrete progress,” Price told reporters.”We have stated very clearly that what we are prepared to do is to engage in constructive dialogue. That is the offer that’s been on the table,” Price said. (…)France, Britain, and Germany had planned to introduce the resolution, with the support of the United States, denouncing Iran’s suspension of some IAEA inspections linked to the accord.The Europeans dropped the plan amid efforts by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to reach a compromise with Iran.”We have decided to not present the resolution,” the German Foreign Ministry said. “Iran must now prove that it is serious in its wish to fully relaunch” the nuclear deal.
France, Britain, and Germany were set to table a resolution at this week’s IAEA meeting in Vienna to condemn Tehran’s decision to restrict the access of nuclear inspectors to the Iranian sites, media reports said.
“The nuclear tensions will lead us in the coming days to put forward a protest in the framework of the IAEA Board of Governors to regret this decision,” Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Tuesday.
Given the Biden State Department’s response, it is worth asking if the White House played an active role in ‘convincing’ the Europeans to back off.
China, a key Iranian ally, joined the Biden administration in welcoming the European decision. Beijing “hailed the dropping of the resolution as an “opportunity … to create favorable conditions” for negotiations over the U.S.,” the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.
With President Trump out of office, the Biden administration is busy dismantling the sanctions placed on the Mullah regime since May 2018 following the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
The Biden administration is replacing the outgoing administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran with an Obamaesque appeasement policy. Reversing President Trump’s decision, the White House last month revoked the enforcement of U.N. sanctions and international arms embargo on Iran.
With the rolling back of the sanctions, the Biden administration is bowing down to Iranian pressure to lift all U.S. sanctions.
President Biden “can announce and reassure us that all sanctions imposed after the [Obama-Kerry nuclear deal] would be lifted in less than one year and tell us to go and negotiate the process,” a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader told UK’s Financial Times on Friday.
As part of this future nuclear agreement with the Biden team, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has demanded $1 trillion in “reparations'” for the sanctions placed by President Trump.
“Iran to limit UN inspectors’ access to nuclear sites”
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