'Red lines have sometimes been ignored...': Iran says reviving nuclear deal 'useless'

Iran declared on Saturday that the efforts to revive the nuclear deal with global powers, which was effectively scrapped by former US President Donald Trump, are becoming increasingly “useless”. “Today, the more we advance, the more the JCPOA becomes useless,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech to students at the University of Tehran, using the initials of the official name of the nuclear deal, reported AFP. The JCPOA, signed in 2015, involved Iran agreeing to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. However, the deal lost its effectiveness when the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under Trump, who then reimposed sanctions. The subsequent reluctance of international banks and businesses to engage with Iran due to fears of violating US regulations further diminished the impact of the agreement. Efforts to revive the deal by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, have been stalled since mid-2022. Amir-Abdollahian said that due to the disregard for Iran’s red lines by the other party, there is currently no progress toward a return to the agreement. However, he clarified that this does not mean the agreement has been abandoned entirely, expressing a willingness to accept it with its flaws if it serves Iran’s interests. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, called in October on the international community not to fail in Iran as it did in North Korea, which now has nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but since 2021 the UN body has struggled to monitor the development of its capabilities. With inputs from AFP