“The window of opportunity for the new U.S. administration will not be open forever,” Iran’s foreign minister warned.
Demonstrating a degree of arrogance unusual even for his country, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif laid out “Iran’s conditions for America’s reentry” into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, in a Foreign Affairs op-ed on Friday.
“U.S. President Joe Biden can choose a better path by ending Trump’s failed policy of ‘maximum pressure’ and returning to the deal his predecessor abandoned,” said Zarif.
“If he does, Iran will likewise return to full implementation of our commitments under the nuclear deal. But if Washington instead insists on extracting concessions, then this opportunity will be lost,” he warned.
Zarif insisted that the Biden administration must “begin by unconditionally removing” all sanctions imposed, re-imposed, or relabeled since Trump took office.
In other words, he demanded that the US must obey Iran’s conditions unconditionally.
Then and only then would the remaining signatories to the deal “decide” whether the United States “should be allowed to reclaim the seat at the table” that it abandoned in 2018,” Zarif said.
“That return to the table will be jeopardized if Washington or its EU allies demand new terms for a deal that was already carefully constructed through years of negotiations,” he threatened.
Zarif said the Biden administration had a fundamental choice to make. He warned that the “window of opportunity will not be open forever”.
He said that Biden’s removal of sanctions against Iran and agreement to abide by the “unaltered” terms of the JCPOA would “open new possibilities for peace and stability in our region.”
Iran’s terms appear to directly counter recent statements by the Biden administration, which has suggested that Iran should be the first to comply and that the terms of the JCPOA may be subject to some degree of renegotiation.
In the administration’s first White House press briefing on Jan. 20, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the U.S. would seek to “lengthen and strengthen nuclear constraints on
Iran and address other issues of concern.”
“Iran must resume compliance with significant nuclear constraints under the deal in order for that to proceed,” she stated.
Biden’s Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken said at a Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 19, “The president-elect believes that if Iran comes back into compliance, we would too.”
Blinken also confirmed that the U.S. would seek a “longer and stronger agreement.”
In a Sept. 2020 CNN op-ed, Biden wrote, “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.”
“With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal’s provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern,” he said.