Talks can’t go on indefinitely

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday said the negotiating process with Iran to revive a 2015 nuclear deal could not go on indefinitely, and that the ball was in Iran's court. 

"We are committed to diplomacy, but this process cannot go on indefinitely. At some point the gains achieved by the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) cannot be fully recovered by a return to the JCPOA if Iran continues the activities that it's undertaken with regard to its nuclear program," he said, addressing a news conference in Kuwait.

"We have clearly demonstrated our good faith and desire to return to mutual compliance with the nuclear agreement ... The ball remains in Iran's court and we will see if they're prepared to make the decisions necessary to come back into compliance."

Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington to revive the nuclear pact, from which then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States, adjourned on June 20, two days after the hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of the Islamic Republic. Raisi takes office on Aug 5.

Parties involved in the negotiations have yet to say when they might resume.

His comment came a day after Iran's supreme leader declared Tehran would not accept Washington's "stubborn" demands in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal and said the United States had failed to guarantee that it would never abandon the pact again.

"The Americans acted completely cowardly and maliciously," state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying. "They once violated the nuclear deal at no cost by exiting it. Now they explicitly say that they cannot give guarantees that it would not happen again."

Like Khamenei, Raisi has backed the revival of the nuclear pact but officials have said that his government might adopt "a hardline" approach. Khamenei, not the president, has the last say on Iran's state matters, including the nuclear policy.

Iranian and Western officials have said significant gaps remained to reinstate the deal, under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from tough sanctions. Iran says it has never sought nuclear weapons and never would.

Harsh sanctions reimposed by Trump since 2018 have prompted Tehran to violate the deal's limits. However, Tehran says its nuclear steps are reversible if Washington lifts all sanctions.

Biden seeks to reinstate and eventually broaden the pact to put more limits on Iran's nuclear work and its missile development and constrain its regional activities.

Khamenei again flatly rejected adding any other issues to the deal.