MI6 chief Richard Moore doubts Iran wants a nuclear deal

“I don’t think the Supreme Leader of Iran wants to cut the deal,” MI6 chief Richard Moore told CNN’s Jim Sciutto at the Aspen Security Forum. reasons “I think a deal is absolutely on the table and the European powers and the administration here are very, very clear about that, and I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to stand in the way of it. But I don’t. I think the Iranians want it.”

Hopes of a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for 2015 appear to be fading as President Joe Biden pushes for a deal amid pressure from allies in the Middle East to rein in Iran. Biden he said last week said that diplomacy is the best way to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and that the United States will not allow the country to achieve this weapon. He also admitted that the United States “will not wait forever” for the response of the Iranian leadership regarding the agreement.

A senior US official suggested on Friday that there is still a chance to save the deal.

Victoria Nuland, the secretary of state’s political adviser, suggested Tehran was still interested in a deal, noting that “they haven’t fallen off the table” and that “they could have done it in a few months, but they haven’t gone” where the deal is sitting. .

Nuland said it was up to Iran and ultimately Khamenei to agree to the negotiated deal.

“It will put their oil back on the market. It will give them some relief from some of the sanctions that are in place. But so far they haven’t taken that path,” he told Sciutto in Aspen. Security Forum on Friday.

Nuland said that if Khamenei does not accept the deal, “of course we will have to increase the pressure.” He did not give specific information about what this pressure will cause.

Negotiations between US and Iranian officials regarding the agreement were held last month in Doha, the capital of Qatar, with the mediation of the European Union. ended without progress. After the talks, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani tweeted that Iran presented “operational ideas and proposals” and added that Mora and Iran’s negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani “will be in touch regarding the continuation of the talks and the next stage.”

Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, echoed Biden’s sentiments on Tuesday, saying the likelihood of reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for 2015 was “diminishing by the day”. He also said there was no set deadline for Tehran to return to the nuclear deal, but the window was “closing pretty quickly” and “I think at some point it will be clear to everyone that the deal no longer exists.”

“If Iran wants to go back to the deal, as they say they want to do, there is a very easy way to do that, and that is to agree to terms with the European Union as the coordinator, not the United States. You wrote to us, you wrote to the Iranians,” – Malley This was reported by CNN reporter Sara Sidner Amanpour added that they came up with what they considered a “fair offer”. “We are ready to agree on this basis, we expect Iran to say the same.”

in 2018 The US withdrew from the nuclear deal under then-President Donald Trump, who called it “inherently flawed” and increasingly rejected the deal’s restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.

CNNs Kylie Atwood, Claire Calzonetti and Emmet Lyons contributed to this report.