Iran Calls US Negative Reaction To Its Response In Nuclear Talks 'Hasty'

In a long unsigned article, IRNA insisted that Iran’s positions in the nuclear talks have not changed and quoted remarks by President Ebrahim Raisi made earlier in the week. It said the president had insisted on four conditions: Removing United States’ sanctions, verification, reassuring guarantees and shelving IAEA demands on safeguards.

Recent optimistic assessments tended to assume that agreement was reached on most of these issues, except the demand of the International Atomic Energy Agency to receive satisfying answers from Tehran on its past undeclared nuclear activities.

IRNA said that based on the four conditions Iran sent its response on Thursday to the EU coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora and hours later the United States in a “hasty” move called Iran’s response “not constructive”. It claimed that earlier Western sides had agreed that Iran’s demands on lifting sanctions and closing the IAEA file were reasonable.

IRNA specifically cited comments by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on August 22 that had called Iran’s earlier response of August 15 “reasonable”.

The article concluded by saying that the delay in an agreement is solely due to “America’s internal problems” and “weakness in the Biden Administration's decision making.”

President Joe Biden faces domestic opposition to reviving the JCPOA, but Iran has also insisted on concessions that in some cases go beyond the JCPOA framework.