As Blinken said during his visit on Sunday, “there are no differences between us on the fundamental proposition that Iran should never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken , tried this Sunday in a visit to Jerusalem to prevent a crisis with Israel due to the possibility of reissuing the controversial nuclear pact with Iran. In fact, that agreement, promoted by the Joe Biden team since he came to power in January 2021, was the focus of a large part of the meetings that Blinken had with the Israeli Prime Minister, Naftalí Bennett, and the Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid .
As Blinken said in a joint appearance with the former, “there are no differences between us on the fundamental proposition that Iran should never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.” From Israel, Blinken will travel to the Maghreb, with stops in Morocco and Algeria, but not Spain.
Three years after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear deal , the two nations indirectly resumed talks last year. Efforts have since advanced to return the two countries to the 2015 nuclear deal, which forced Iran to impose restrictions on its uranium enrichment programs in exchange for a substantial easing of the sanctions regime.
Trump hastily and unilaterally pulled the US out of that deal in 2018, applying round after round of suffocating sanctions that have come close to sinking the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy altogether. Raising the tension, in 2020 Trump killed General Qassem Soleimani with missiles , commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ feared Quds Force,Biden is being extremely cautious about Iran, aware that any misstep could throw him into crisis on Capitol Hill where Republicans still hold sway, if not the majority.
When Barack Obama negotiated the nuclear deal in 2015, it was met with fierce resistance from both Republicans on Capitol Hill and from then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. who even gave a speech on Capitol Hill—at the invitation of Republicans—criticizing to the tenant of the White House. A year ago, the opposition removed Netanyahu from power with a motion of no confidence.
For his part, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said on Saturday that Iran and the world powers are “very close” to an agreement to reissue that nuclear agreement, in order to lift the toughest sanctions on the economy. Iranian. “Now we are very close to an agreement and I hope it is possible,” Borrell said in a speech to the Doha Forum.
