US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday, a White House official said, as Tehran seeks stronger guarantees from Washington for the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal that is strongly opposed by Israel.
In its own readout of the leaders' call, Lapid's office said they "spoke at length about the negotiations on a nuclear agreement, and their shared commitment to stopping Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon."
After 16 months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Aug. 8 the EU had laid down a final offer to overcome an impasse for the revival of the agreement.
On Wednesday, Iran's top diplomat, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said Tehran was carefully reviewing Washington's response to the text, which was conveyed to Iran last week by the EU as coordinator of the nuclear talks.
"Iran is carefully reviewing the EU-drafted text... We need stronger guarantees from the other party to have a sustainable deal," Amirabdollahian told a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart in Moscow.
Amirabdollahian did not elaborate on "stronger guarantees", but during months of talks with Washington in Vienna, Tehran demanded US assurances that no future American president would abandon the deal as former US President Donald Trump did in 2018.
