Speaking in a news conference late on Thursday, Ned Price said that returning to JCPOA still serves interests of Washington.
“Referring to the fact that the JCPOA continues, we believe, to be in our national security interests. It continues to be in our national security interests principally because it would once again put in a box Iran’s nuclear program, a program that since 2018 has been in a position to gallop forward in ways that are unacceptable to us, that are unacceptable to many of our allies and partners around the world,” he said.
Price added, “If we are going to be in a position to mutually return to full compliance with the JCPOA, what that would do is to once again impose the most stringent set of – the most stringent verification and monitoring regime ever peacefully negotiated. And importantly, it would prolong what is now a breakout time – that is to say, the time it would take Iran to acquire the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon if Iran decided to pursue the path of weaponization. It would prolong that period, a period that, once again, for us is unacceptably short.”
“So we know the status quo can’t endure for long. And so either we’re going to be in a position to return to compliance with the JCPOA and to see those restrictions once again imposed on Iran’s nuclear program, or we’re going to have to pursue a different path. It has been clear to us since the beginning that a mutual return to compliance was never guaranteed. It was never a certainty. So, discussions with our allies and partners regarding an alternative approach – that is not something that we have undertaken only in recent days or even recent weeks. These are discussions that we have had for a number of months now with allies and partners around the world,” he continued.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran emphasizes that it has the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s inspectors have visited Iran's nuclear facilities several times, but have never found any evidence that the country's peaceful nuclear energy program is deviating towards military purposes.
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