Tehran hit out on Tuesday at what it called Washington’s “contradictory” policies, after President Joe Biden vowed to pile pressure on Iran ahead of a visit to the Middle East.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post ahead of his visit this week to Israel and Saudi Arabia, Biden said his administration will continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressure until Iran is ready to return to compliance with the nuclear deal.
Biden’s emphasis on pursuing the policy of economic and diplomatic pressure against Iran is “contradictory” to Washington's continued statements on reviving the agreement, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said.
He dismissed Biden’s remarks as “a one-sided and unrealistic account of the US government’s policies in the West Asia region.”
Biden made reviving the Iran nuclear deal, brokered by President Barack Obama in 2015 and abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018, a key priority as he entered office. However, he has refused to lift sanctions on Tehran until it returns to compliance with the accord.
In his opinion piece, Biden wrote that his trip also aimed to “work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world.”
The Iranian spokesman stressed that if the US officials wanted “stability and security in the West Asia region... they should understand the new realities of the world and avoid trying to impose American values and unilateralism.”
The US needs to “allow the countries of the region to act based on their values, interests and realities and within the framework of regional cooperation to ensure their security and collective interests,” Kanaani said.
Biden is scheduled to hold a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank on July 13 and will heed afterward to Saudi Arabia, in the first regional tour since he assumed his post in early 2021.
The Biden administration has been engaged in talks since April 2021 aimed at returning the US to the nuclear deal, including through the lifting of sanctions on Iran and ensuring Tehran’s full compliance with its commitments.
But the on-off negotiations held in the Austrian capital Vienna have stalled since March with several different unresolved issues remaining between the US and Iran.
In late June, Qatar hosted indirect talks between the US and Iran in a bid to get the Vienna process back on track, but those discussions broke up after two days without a breakthrough.
