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ROME, Oct 30 (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden said Saturday that nuclear talks with Iran would resume while he and a trio of European allies warned that Iran has \u201caccelerated the pace of provocative nuclear steps\u201d after they met to align strategy for the negotiations aimed at trying to bring Iran and the U.S. back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019 and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain met at a pivotal time as Iran continues to enrich uranium to near-weapons-grade levels. The leaders are trying to revive the 2015 deal and restore Iran\u2019s program to where it was under the pact, which kept the Islamic republic at least one year away from the potential to field a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
In a joint statement following the meeting with Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel, France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron and Britain\u2019s Boris Johnson, the four leaders \u201cexpressed our determination to ensure that Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
The leaders also said they shared \u201cour grave and growing concern\u201d that Iran \u201chas accelerated the pace of provocative nuclear steps\u201d after it halted negotiations on a return to the nuclear agreement, formally known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).<\/p>\n
They also warned that Iran\u2019s nuclear developments and restrictions on international monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency \u201cwill jeopardize the possibility of a return to\u201d the deal.<\/p>\n
As the leaders posed for photos before their closed-door talks, Biden was asked when he would like the stalled negotiations with Iran to resume.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re scheduled to resume,\u201d he said, in what appeared to be the first public confirmation by the U.S. of a resumption in negotiations.<\/p>\n
Iran has yet to commit to a date to return to nuclear talks being held in Vienna but has signaled it will do so next week with a target of late November for resuming the negotiations. The U.S. and others have expressed skepticism about Iranian intentions.<\/p>\n
The U.N.\u2019s atomic watchdog has said Iran is increasingly in violation of the nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from. The U.S. has participated indirectly in talks aimed at bringing both Washington and Tehran back into compliance. Those talks in Vienna have been on hiatus since June, when Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi took power.<\/p>\n
Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union remain part of the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call upon President Raisi to seize this opportunity and return to a good faith effort to conclude our negotiations as a matter of urgency,\u201d the leaders said in their communique. \u201cThat is the only sure way to avoid a dangerous escalation, which is not in any country\u2019s interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s meeting was held while the leaders are in Rome for the Group of 20 summit, the first stop on Biden\u2019s five-day foreign trip. He\u2019s also attending a U.N. climate conference in Scotland.<\/p>\n
Biden was welcomed to the summit site by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and joined his counterparts for the customary \u201cfamily photo,\u2019 before he attended the opening plenary session on the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recovery.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s meeting followed days after Ali Bagheri, Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister and chief negotiator for the talks, tweeted that Iran has agreed to restart negotiations by the end of November and a date for a resumption of talks \u201cwould be announced in the course of the next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday that the U.S. was still trying to determine whether Iran was serious about returning to the negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have heard positive signals that they are, but I think we have to wait and see when and whether they actually show up at the negotiating table,\u201d he told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One as Biden flew to Rome.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said the leaders would send \u201cclear messages\u201d to Iran that the window for negotiation \u201cis not unlimited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe, of course, retain all other options to be able to deal with this program as necessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s meeting comes after American officials blamed Iran for a drone attack on a remote U.S. outpost in Syria. Officials said Monday the U.S. believes Iran resourced and encouraged the attack, but that the drones were not launched from Iran.<\/p>\n
No deaths or injuries were reported as a result of the attack.<\/p>\n
In retaliation, the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced new penalties against two senior members of Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps and two affiliated companies for supplying lethal drones and related material to insurgent groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
At the summit, Biden pushed for progress toward his goal of establishing a global 15% corporate minimum tax, the White House said, even as his domestic effort to raise the business rate to that figure was stuck in limbo in Washington.<\/p>\n
He also was expected to discuss measures to ease a global energy supply crunch that has fueled rising prices, imperiling the global economic recovery. On Sunday, Biden planned to host an event on strengthening supply chains around the world as factories and ports have struggled to deliver goods because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROME, Oct 30 (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden said Saturday that nuclear talks with Iran would resume while he and a trio of European allies warned that Iran has \u201caccelerated the pace of provocative nuclear steps\u201d after they met to align strategy for the negotiations aimed at trying to bring Iran and the U.S. back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-175513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}