US President Joe Biden has been caught on camera admitting that, although his administration would not publicly announce it, the Iran nuclear deal is “dead”.
In a video that surfaced online on Tuesday, President Biden was asked about the deal while shaking hands with members of the public in California on November 3.
A woman, who appeared to be wearing the colours of the Iranian flag in her hair, asked: “President Biden, could you please announce that the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is dead,”
Initially, Biden says: “No… for a lot of reasons,”
He adds: “It is dead, but we are not going to announce it. Long story.”
The woman goes on to plead with the 46th president to not make “deals with the mullahs”, while another next to her says the Iranian government “does not represent us,”
“Oh, I know they don’t represent you,” Biden says, “but they’ll have a nuclear weapon that will represent them.”
In response to the video, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the president’s comments were “very much in line” with the administration’s stance.
Mr Kirby added: “There is no progress happening with respect to the Iran deal now. We don’t anticipate any progress anytime in the near future,
“We simply don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon, while Iran continues to kill its own citizens and is selling UAVs to Russia,”
Former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett said Biden’s remarks spoke to the effectiveness of the outgoing Israeli government’s approach to the talks.
Mr Bennett said: “Quietly and wisely through a series of diplomatic and other actions, we managed to stop the return to the nuclear agreement without creating a rift with the US,”
There had in recent weeks been speculation that Iran is attempting to revive the stalled talks, which could ease the sanctions currently imposed on Tehran by the United States and international community.
The JCPOA was seen as a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration in 2015, and aimed to increase transparency surrounding Iran’s nuclear facilities and curb the country’s access to nuclear weapon technology.
President Donald Trump’s administration pulled out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed stringent sanctions on Iran, which was received positively by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
