Just hours after Iran said on Thursday evening that it had sent a “constructive” response to the final draft of the nuclear deal to the Biden administration, the White House counter-responded by saying Tehran’s response was “not constructive” at all, lowering optimism that a deal will be finalized soon. The latest back-and-forth comes shortly after a European Union diplomat suggested that a deal could be signed soon, and after Iran’s indications that it was looking forward to finalizing the agreement that would see Iranian oil back on the market. A U.S. State Department spokesman has now said that while Iran’s response is still being studied, it was not viewed as constructive, CNN reports. “We are studying Iran’s response, but the bottom line is that it is not at all encouraging,” a senior Biden administration official told POLITICO on Thursday evening. No details have been given as to the exact nature of Iran’s response, but the same administration official said “based on their answer, we appear to be moving backwards”. The same sentiment was echoed by a European diplomat who told Bloomberg that the Iranian response seemed “negative and not reasonable”. The markets are now speculating over what this means for the fate of the nuclear deal, which the Biden administration was hoping to secure before the midterm elections. “With this opportunity squandered, it is now hard to imagine that a deal can happen before the midterms,” Ali Vaez, a top analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Bloomberg. The markets have been anxious over a revival of the nuclear deal, which could significantly impact prices. “Should the nuclear deal be revived, 1-2 million barrels per day of extra oil could hit the market in a comparatively short period of time,” a commodities analyst told CNBC.
Iran There Will Be No Nuclear Deal Unless IAEA Ends Probe
- Raisi: IAEA must drop nuclear probe or Iran won’t sign nuclear deal.
- Raisi still sees no need to meet with U.S. President Biden.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency has referred to the traces of nuclear materials as a “safeguards” issue.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says there can be no revival of a nuclear deal with global superpowers unless the UN’s nuclear watchdog drops its probe into the origins of nuclear material found at three undeclared Iranian sites. In a news conference in Tehran to mark his first year in power on August 29, Raisi also said that he still sees no reason to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden, even though the two will be at the UN General Assembly next month. “Without the settlement of the safeguards issue, speaking about an agreement [on a revamped nuclear pact] has no meaning,” Raisi said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has referred to the traces of nuclear materials as a “safeguards” issue. Raisi succeeded two-term president Hassan Rohani after winning an election in August 2021. Upon his election, Raisi responded to a question on whether he would meet Biden, who succeeded Donald Trump, the U.S. president who unilaterally pulled his country out of the 2015 nuclear deal, by simply answering, “No.”Asked the same question on August 29, Raisi added a few more words to his answer, though the bottom line remained the same. “There is no benefit for a meeting between us and him,” Raisi said. “Neither for the Iranian nation nor for the interests of our great nation.” Since the United States withdrew from the pact in 2018 and started reimposing crippling sanctions on Iran, Tehran has progressively rolled back its own commitments to the deal. The deal was designed to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. NN: As far as i am concerned its a fait accompli. They already have nukes. Its now down to shutting down the assembly line and destroying the weapons it has already made