Biden's administration considers the decision on the part of the last administration to withdraw from the JCPOA one of the greatest strategic blunders of American foreign policy in recent years, Ned Price said on Tuesday, referring to Trump's unilateral withdrawal from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal.
He also criticized Trump's maximum pressure policy saying, "The last administration attempted to do that with the strategy of maximum pressure. That clearly didn’t work."
"What history teaches us is that economic pressure is most effective when it’s brought to bear with other allies and partners," he added.
Elsewhere, Ned Price referred to Biden's remarks about the chances of reviving the JCPOA.
"The President did not say diplomacy is dead, not at all," he said in response to a question.
Biden said that Iranians killed the prospect for a swift return to compliance with the JCPOA, he also claimed, without referring to the fact that it was Washington that turned its back to the JCPOA revival talks.
Tehran has always expressed its openness to reaching an agreement in the nuclear talks.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.
Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.
The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.
RHM/PR/FNA14011020000073