The secretary-general said after the meeting that the United States and Israel agreed that Iran should not have access to nuclear weapons, and stressed that efforts to prevent Iran’s nuclear capability would continue even if negotiations on a nuclear deal eventually collapsed. “Whether there is a return to the (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – the Iran nuclear deal – or not, this principle will not change, nor will our commitment to it,” he said. Dealing with Iran’s nuclear capabilities has been a key foreign policy goal for the Biden administration, with the United States hoping for a revival of the 2015 agreement that would see Iran limit uranium enrichment in exchange for easing sanctions. Iran is increasingly moving away from its commitments under the agreement, and many believe it will be able to rapidly develop nuclear weapons and pose a serious threat to security and stability in the Middle East unless significant progress is made soon. Blinken’s comments came hours after Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, told CNN’s Becky Anderson at the Doha Forum in Qatar that a nuclear deal with Iran “is out of the question and inevitable” because of the remaining issues that “are of great importance. to the parties to the talks. One of the remaining issues in the months-long negotiations aimed at re-complying Iran and the United States with the 2015 nuclear deal is the removal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a key request of Iran. Maley said the IRGC would remain sanctioned “no matter what happens” by being listed as a terrorist organization. In comments that appeared to contradict Malley’s view on the negotiations, Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran’s top leader, told CNN in Doha that an agreement was “imminent”. He emphasized that the IRGC “should definitely be removed” from the list of terrorist organizations, adding: “This is not the only problem. “We have about 500 individuals and institutions imposed by the United States, and all or part of them have a direct economic impact on relations between Iran and the West.” Malley also told CNN that he is currently in the Middle East to talk to regional partners, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, about a possible revival of the nuclear deal. “I think it’s one of the lessons that President Biden has learned from the last two governments, that we need to be more in tune with the region and all the countries in the region with which we have close ties,” he said. US and European officials have warned for months that the time to save the 2015 deal, which the US abandoned in 2018 under the Trump administration, is dwindling rapidly as Iran develops its nuclear program. Negotiators met in Vienna for almost a year to try to salvage the deal. CNN reported earlier this month that talks to bail out the Iran nuclear deal broke without an agreement as negotiators left Vienna with a handful of issues left unresolved amid Russian demands complicating a possible deal. This story has been updated with additional feedback. CNN’s Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.
