Iran had not responded to an offer from the United States made last week to hold a meeting including the world powers about renegotiating the 2015 nuclear deal, and US patience is “not unlimited,” according to the State Department.
“Our goal in all of this is to ensure that we once again have verifiable and permanent constraints on Iran’s nuclear program and to ensure that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. So, all that to say our patience is not unlimited, but we do believe – and the president has been clear on this ever since he was running for high office – that the United States and he felt that the most effective way to ensure Iran could never acquire a nuclear weapon was through diplomacy,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.
Price said that the Biden Administration has full confidence in the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.
“The IAEA, while the Iran deal, while the JCPOA was in full effect, while Iran was abiding by it, they expressed confidence that Iran was living up to its limits,” Price said.
He said the nuclear agreement with Iran slowed the Islamic Republic’s breakout time for achieving a nuclear weapon.
“The entire agreement hinged on a very simple premise, Iran was permanently and verifiably prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said.