Thread: Statement by the JCPOA

Briefing with Senior State Department Official On Recent U.S. Engagement in Vienna Regarding the JCPOA

Special Briefing

Via Teleconference
April 21, 2021

Briefing with Senior State Department Official On Recent U.S. Engagement in Vienna Regarding the JCPOA - United States Department of State



Just one question and answer from the briefing. There are many more.

"MODERATOR:

Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION:

Okay. The Iranians were saying that they’re insisting on getting a written guarantee from the U.S. that a future administration will not abandon the deal. How does that look to you and is this negotiable? They’re also insisting on having some time to verify sanctions relief before they decrease enriching uranium or turn the switch off. How does that look? That would – at least the optics of it would seem like the U.S. is returning first.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL:

So thanks, Farnaz. So on the question of a written guarantee, I think it’s clear there is no such thing as a guarantee. This is a political understanding in which – and it was clear at the time of the JCPOA that it is the sovereign right of all participants to decide whether they want to maintain their participation or not. We – I think the Biden administration, if it decides – if it reaches an understanding with Iran and the other P5+1 to come back into compliance with the deal, it would be with the intent of acting in good faith and not of departing the deal for no good – for no good reason.

But there is no such thing as a guarantee and I think, again, we have made that clear to Iran that it’s not something that the U.S. can or will give. This is a political understanding that relies on the good faith of all actors.

Iran has the experience, and understandably a – not a very pleasant one, of the U.S. withdrawing unilaterally from the deal, but certainly the Biden administration’s intent if it were to come back into compliance would be to act in good faith if Iran did the same.

As for verifying the sanctions, I mean, if – as we’ve said, if Iran’s position is that the United States needs to lift all sanctions to come back into compliance, then Iran would verify that only then would Iran take action. That’s not a sequence that we could accept and, frankly, I don’t think it’s a sequence that the other participants in the JCPOA believes is a reasonable one.

There are many other forms of sequencing that one could discuss, and we’re open to that, but we’re not going to accept a process in which the U.S. acts first and removes all of the sanctions that it is committed to removing before Iran does anything."

Agreement incapable, as some have suggested or: