Iran insists on U.S. guarantees to revive 2015 nuclear pact
STORY: Trump in 2018 abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran had agreed to restrain its atomic program in return for relief from economic sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin violating the nuclear limits about a year later.
"The issue of guarantees is not just for something that may happen, we base that on lived experience, we’re speaking of the experience of America having left the JCPOA and we have a year and a half of negotiations with the current government for it to return to the fulfillment of commitment," Raisi said at the U.N. General Assembly.
"Can we truly trust without guarantees and assurances that they will this time live up to their commitment?"
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 and re-imposed U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to start breaching the deal's nuclear curbs and reviving U.S., Arab and Israeli fears it may be seeking an atomic bomb. Iran denies having nuclear ambitions.
The 2015 agreement appeared near revival in March after 11 months of indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna. But talks then broke down over obstacles such as Iran's demand that the United States provide guarantees that no future American president would abandon the deal. U.S. President Joe Biden cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.
