US envoy says possible Iran won’t return to nuclear deal

The Iranian national flag is seen outside the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters during the agency’s Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on March 1, 2021. (AFP)

• Rob Malley says ‘there is every possibility that Iran will choose a different path, and we need to coordinate with regional partners’
• He will be traveling to the Gulf to talk about efforts to return to Iran nuclear deal

WASHINGTON: The US negotiator on Iran said Wednesday it was possible that Tehran will never return to a 2015 nuclear accord, and that Washington was working with regional allies on a Plan B.
Rob Malley, who led indirect talks with Iran earlier this year, said that President Joe Biden’s administration still felt it was best to return to the deal that was trashed by former president Donald Trump.
“We feel like coming back would still be the best outcome but we’re realistic,” Malley said at an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“We know that there’s at least a good possibility that Iran is going to choose a different path and we need to coordinate with Israel and with our other partners in the region,” Malley said.
He said the two sides had made headway in their first six rounds of indirect talks in Vienna about reviving the deal, but he suggested the new Iranian government under President Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August, may adopt a different stance.
He also said the US is ready to consider “all options” if Iran is unwilling to return to the nuclear deal.
In addition to using the phrase “all options,” which is typically intended to include the possibility — however remote — of military action, Malley also said the US and Israel were united in opposing Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
The foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which established relations last year, were meeting jointly Wednesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Beyond citing US consultation with Israel, which has previously struck nuclear sites in Iraq and Syria, Malley also said he would soon travel to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to coordinate with the US Gulf allies.
(With AFP and Reuters)