Sullivan Says Still Some Sanction Snags Stopping Signing of Sought-After Settlement

United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday revealed there is still “a fair distance to travel on some of the key issues” before a renewed nuclear deal with Iran can be reached. According to Sullivan, the ongoing talks in Vienna, begun in April, have yet to produce agreements on the matters of sanctions and “nuclear commitments” Tehran must make. “We will see if the Iranian negotiators come to the next round … prepared to make [the] hard choices that they have to make,” he told  ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Addressing the weekend’s elections which ushered in hard-line Iranian president-elect Ebrahim Raisi, Sullivan insisted the ultimate decision of whether to resume compliance with the 2015 pact lay with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “He was the same person before this election as he is after the election,” Sullivan said. European mediators have been shuttling between American and Iranian diplomats in the Austrian capital in an attempt to secure a mutual return to the largely abandoned Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear agreement.