Top Iranian Nuclear Negotiator Says ‘Blame Game’ Hampering New Deal

Iran is defending itself against an assessment by the world powers that the nuclear deal currently being renegotiated with Iran will soon become “an empty shell” if there is no progress in the negotiations. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri, tweeted on Tuesday that the world powers are not meeting the Islamic Republic half-way in order to make progress in the negotiations. “Some actors persist in their blame game habit, instead of real diplomacy. We proposed our ideas early, and worked constructively and flexibly to narrow gaps. Diplomacy is a two-way street. If there’s real will to remedy the culprit’s wrongdoing, the way for a quick, good deal will be paved.” the tweet said. The back-and-forth criticism between the world powers and Iran comes less than two days after Bagheri was quoted by Lebanon’s pro-Iranian Al Mayadeen TV as saying that good progress was made in the latest round of negotiations in Vienna that ended abruptly on Friday, and would lead the way to more serious negotiations. The seventh round of negotiations began at the end of November, after a months-long hiatus during which Iran elected a new hard-line president. Under the nuclear agreement originally signed in 2015, Iran agreed to slow its nuclear production in exchange for an end to most sanctions. The United States left the agreement in 2018, leading Iran to again enrich uranium at higher levels of purity and in larger quantities, bringing it within an estimated several weeks or months of achieving a nuclear warhead.