Exclusive: Iran diplomat says 'window is closing' for Biden to rejoin nuclear deal

WASHINGTON – Iran's highest-ranking diplomat in the USA warned the Biden administration it "must act quickly" to return to the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by President Donald Trump "because the window is closing" for Washington to lift economic sanctions before Tehran's deadline.

Iran's hard-line-dominated parliament set a deadline of Feb. 21 for Biden to lift U.S. sanctions as part of a move back into the now-breached agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. If the United States fails to act, Iran plans to suspend some inspections of its nuclear sites by United Nations nuclear inspectors – a key provision of the accord – and further boost uranium enrichment.

"We have said time and again that if the U.S. decides to go back to its international commitments and lift all the illegal sanctions against Iran, we will go back to the full implementation of JCPOA, which will benefit all sides," said Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, in exclusive remarks to USA TODAY. 

Asked about the ambassador's comments on Friday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to given a timeline for reviving talks with Iran.  

"The first step here is to Iran is for Iran to comply with the significant nuclear constraints under the deal," she said during a White House press briefing.

But the White House signaled its own urgency on Friday, naming Robert Malley as a special envoy for Iran on Friday. A longtime diplomat with extensive experience in Middle East issues, Malley will lead the Biden administration's team on any Iran negotiations, the State Department said Friday.  

If Iran's deadline passes without some kind of compromise, it could effectively push Iran one step closer to the 90% uranium enrichment level required for a nuclear weapon. Iran has been enriching at about 20%, a violation of the accord, as part of its response to the U.S. exit from the deal.

Ravanchi said in the interview the U.N. nuclear inspectors would not be expelled from Iran, but additional access to its nuclear sites it provided on a voluntary basis would be halted. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States will rejoin the accord only after Iran comes back into compliance. This means, in part, limiting uranium enrichment to less than 4%.

"President Biden has been very clear in saying that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing," Blinken said Wednesday.

Tehran wants Washington to rejoin on the same terms it left the accord. Ravanchi's comments underscore the difficulties Iran and the United States face in resuming nuclear diplomacy, as both sides insist the other must act first. 

"The party that needs to change course is the United States, and not Iran," said Ravanchi, who helped negotiate the agreement that Trump withdrew from in 2018. He said Iran cannot accept a "renegotiation of the nuclear deal." 

Escalating tensions

Washington accuses Iran of escalating tensions through provocative acts such as seizing cargo ships in the Persian Gulf (a vital route for oil supplies), backing Iranian proxies who have repeatedly launched rockets at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and imprisoning Iranian Americans on false spying charges.

Blinken said the United States is a "long ways" from meeting President Joe Biden's aspiration to rejoin the deal.

"Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts, and it would take some time, should it make a decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance and for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations. So we're not there yet, to say the least," Blinken said at a news briefing.

Iran counters that Washington, not Tehran, is behind escalating tensions. It points to the Pentagon's killing of Iran's top commander, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad last January and the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, its top nuclear scientist, outside Tehran in November. Iran's government accuses Israel, with U.S. support, of being behind Fakhrizadeh's killing.

Iran insists, despite skepticism from the international community, that it is not interested in developing a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear activities are intended for civilian purposes only.

Nasser Hadian, a professor of international relations at the University of Tehran who has close links with officials in Iran's Foreign Ministry, predicted that the United States and Iran would return to the nuclear deal as it existed under President Barack Obama's administration.

"Washington may not be happy about it, but it knows it's the only game in town," he said.

On the homefront

Biden risks political blowback if he returns to the deal without gaining any concessions from Iran. 

Republicans in Congress, as well as some Democrats, press Biden to make the most of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran. Under that policy, the Trump administration slapped hundreds of sanctions on Iran. Lawmakers said Biden should use that leverage to force Iran to curb its malign activities, including its ballistic missile program and its support for terrorist proxy groups. 

"I fear returning to the JCPOA without concrete efforts to address Iran's other dangerous and destabilizing activity would be insufficient," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Blinken at his confirmation hearing Jan. 19.

Menendez said there is bipartisan support for a "comprehensive diplomatic approach" that would limit Iran’s antagonistic activities.

Republicans have been far more vocal in their campaign to dissuade Biden from rejoining the deal.

"Unfortunately, the Iranian regime thinks it has successfully waited out the maximum pressure program that we have in place," said Idaho Sen. James Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Blinken said the priority is to get Iran's nuclear capabilities "back in the box," then try to negotiate over other concerns. 

If the JCPOA can be revived, he told lawmakers Jan. 19, "we would use that as a platform to build, with our allies and partners, what we called a longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran."

Psaki echoed that position on Friday.

"(The president) believes that through follow-on diplomacy, the U.S. should seek to lengthen and strengthen these nuclear constraints and address other issues of concern, including Iran's ballistic missiles program and its regional activity," Psaki said.

'Ticking time bomb'

Ali Vaez, an expert on Iran with the Crisis Group, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to prevent conflict, said Iran’s Feb. 21 deadline “has now basically thrown a ticking time bomb into this process.”

If there’s no progress by that date, he said, “I'm afraid … that significant nuclear escalation is on the horizon.”

He said the Biden administration faces a difficult calculation: Alienate members of Congress and ignite a domestic firestorm, or “prevent Iran's nuclear program from crossing the Rubicon towards weaponization.”

Despite the obstacles, Vaez said there is “political will on both sides” to revive the JCPOA.

Biden could issue an executive order revoking Trump’s withdrawal from the deal, he said. Iranian leaders could issue a similar decree declaring their intention to come back into compliance. The two sides could then craft a road map that would spell out “staggered but coordinated and simultaneous steps for coming back to full compliance with the deal,” Vaez said.

Vaez said Iran could be open to a broader deal once the United States rejoins the JCPOA, despite Tehran’s rhetoric to the contrary.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an American-born Iranian political analyst at the University of Tehran, said the deadline was intended to signal to the Biden administration that Iran is aware that much of the Trump administration's actions were done by decree.

"This is about testing his sincerity," he said. "Just as Biden has been busy reversing many of Trump's executive orders, he could easily do this with the Iranian nuclear deal. There's nothing particularly complicated about this. It has nothing to do with Congress. Biden's hands are by no means tied. He can do it with one signature."

Marandi said, "Iran didn't appease Trump for four years, and it's not going to appease Biden," whom Tehran views to be in a weakened position domestically because of social divisions and an economic crisis caused by the raging coronavirus pandemic. 

U.S. sanctions on Iran target many of the drivers of its economy, such as the oil industry. These measures impeded Iran's access to personal protective equipment, vaccines and health services during its coronavirus outbreak, which is the worst in the Middle East. The Trump administration said that by withdrawing from the nuclear accord and reimposing sanctions, Iran would come crawling back to the United States. That hasn't happened. 

Ravanchi said the sanctions "are taking a heavy toll on all Iranians, and particularly vulnerable segments of the society. Even medicines are not being spared from sanctions during the pandemic."

He said it's time for the Biden administration to "gain the trust of the Iranian people."