Iran’s rejection of a plan to return to the 2015 international nuclear accord, even as it continues to raise “extraneous demands,” indicates it’s not serious about negotiations, the U.S. State Department’s spokesman said Tuesday.
“We are at a point where the lack of forward momentum, the lack of progress, is tantamount to backtracking,” Ned Price told reporters, saying that terms of a proposal have been largely complete for months.
Efforts to restore the nuclear agreement, which limited Iran’s atomic work in return for sanctions relief, are hanging by a thread. The contours of a deal were drawn at multiparty talks in Vienna but progress stalled in March as the U.S. and Iran disagreed on whether and when to ease penalties not directly linked to the nuclear pact, which then-President Donald Trump exited in 2018.
