ROME (Dispatches) – U.S. President Joe Biden and three European leaders have said they are ready to return to the scuttled deal that eased sanctions against the country only if Iran limits its nuclear program and opens it up to inspections.
Biden, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made it clear in a joint statement that they would not ease sanctions until Iran takes a first step toward ratcheting back its countermeasures taken in response to the West’s failure to fulfill its commitments — a demand Iran has repeatedly rejected.
The leaders were meeting on the sidelines of a G20 global finance conference here.
“The current situation underscores the importance of a negotiated solution that provides for the return of Iran and the U.S. to full compliance,” the leaders said in a joint statement.
The initial Iran nuclear agreement — which provide sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, as well as international inspections — was brokered among the four countries, China, Russia and Iran in 2015.
Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal three years later, though, and reinstated harsh sanctions that damaged Iran’s economy. Iran responded by reducing its compliance after exercising “strategic patience” for a year to see if the other parties would fulfill their commitments but to no avail.
Tehran says as the party which reneged on the agreement, Washington should take the first step to undo its past wrongs.
Biden expressed hope the deal could be patched back together, despite heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S., but initial tentative talks fell apart earlier this year after he failed to take any meaningful action.
The Guardian said Biden is “hamstrung in the value of the guarantees he can give to Iran because the nuclear deal is not a signed treaty endorsed by the U.S. Senate, and he cannot bind the hands of future U.S. administrations”.
Still, the European leaders said they welcomed what they claimed “Biden’s clearly demonstrated commitment to return the U.S. to full compliance with the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the agreement is called] and to stay in full compliance, so long as Iran does the same.”
“We are convinced that it is possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on return to full compliance and to ensure for the long term that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes,” the statement said.
“This will only be possible if Iran changes course,” it added. “We call upon [Iranian President Ebrahim] Raisi to seize this opportunity and return to a good faith effort to conclude our negotiations as a matter of urgency. That is the only sure way to avoid a dangerous escalation,

which is not in any country’s interest.”
Earlier this week, Iran’s deputy foreign minister tweeted that Tehran was ready to return to the negotiating table “before the end of November.”
Biden appeared to confirm talks will start again, telling reporters during the meeting that “they’re scheduled to resume.”
However, U.S. Treasury Department on Saturday imposed a fresh round of sanctions targeting Iran’s drone program in a move which a Russian diplomat said was likely to complicate the “resumption and successful completion” of the negotiations.
“All participants in the #ViennaTalks should refrain from step which can complicate resumption and successful completion of negotiations on restoration of #JCPOA. It must go without saying,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, tweeted.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the sanctions contradict Washington’s claim of seeking to return to the nuclear deal of 2015 and proves the White House is by no means reliable.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview published at the weekend that the simplest solution was for Biden to issue an executive order saying he was returning to the nuclear deal and removing sanctions.
Amir-Abdollahian said his administration was embracing a balanced foreign policy, implying that Iran is going to deprioritize relations with the West, including the main European powers.