Washington
CNN
—
The Iran nuclear deal is “not our focus right now,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price mentioned Wednesday, noting the administration was as a substitute specializing in supporting the protesters in Iran as efforts to revive the nuclear deal have hit one more deadlock.
“The Iranians have made very clear that this is not a deal that they have been prepared to make, a deal certainly does not appear imminent,” Price mentioned at a division briefing.
“Iran’s demands are unrealistic. They go well beyond the scope of the JCPOA,” he mentioned, utilizing the acronym for the formal identify of the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“Nothing we’ve heard in recent weeks suggests they have changed their position,” Price added.
The spokesperson mentioned the administration’s present focus “is on the remarkable bravery and courage that the Iranian people are exhibiting through their peaceful demonstrations, through their exercise of their universal right to freedom of assembly and to freedom of expression.”
“And our focus right now is on shining a spotlight on what they’re doing and supporting them in the ways we can,” Price mentioned.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned in late September that he didn’t “see any prospects in the very near term” to convey a couple of return to the Iran nuclear deal.
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Blinken mentioned that “Iran has continued to try to add extraneous issues to the negotiation that we’re simply not going to say yes to.”
“We will not accept a bad deal, the response that they’ve given to the last proposals put forward by our European partners have been a very significant step backwards,” he mentioned.
A senior State Department official mentioned at the moment that “we’ve hit a wall” due to Tehran’s “unreasonable” calls for.
Speaking to reporters in the course of the UN General Assembly, the official mentioned the UN nuclear watchdog’s probe into unexplained traces of uranium discovered at undisclosed Iranian websites remained the important thing sticking level.
“At the same time as Iran is standing against its people on the street, it’s standing in the way of the kind of economic relief that a nuclear deal would provide. So I think they have to explain that to their own people why, on the verge of the deal, they would choose this issue and jeopardize at this point the possibility of the deal,” the official mentioned in late September.
Amid the standstill on the JCPOA, the Biden administration has unveiled a collection of measures geared toward punishing the regime for its repression of the Iranian individuals and to attempt to assist the protesters.
In late September, the US introduced sanctions on Iran’s Morality Police following the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini of their custody.
In an announcement, the US Treasury Department mentioned it was sanctioning the morality police “for abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protestors.”
Shortly thereafter, amid web shutdowns by the Iranian authorities within the face of widespread protests over Amini’s loss of life, the US authorities took a step meant to permit know-how corporations to assist the individuals of Iran entry data on-line.
Last week, the US issued extra sanctions on seven senior Iranian officers for the federal government shutdown of web entry and the violence towards protesters, focusing on Iran’s Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi, who oversees all Law Enforcement Forces which have been used to suppress protests, in addition to its Minister of Communications.