In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, the official said he expected no difficulty persuading EU nations to maintain ballistic missile sanctions on Iran, despite the expiration of these sanctions in October.
According to the UNSC resolution 2231, which was issued about 8 years ago to approve the JCPOA, the restrictions imposed on Iran's missile activities will expire in October 2023.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said he sees a window of opportunity by the end of 2023 to try to negotiate a de-escalatory nuclear deal with Iran.
"We may have a small window of opportunity to try to resume discussions with them on (a) return to the JCPOA or at least to an agreement of de-escalation … before the end of the year," the official told reporters in Washington.
In the past months, Ukraine and Western countries have repeatedly claimed that Iranian drones have been transferred to Russia for use in the Ukrainian war. Western countries have also claimed that Iran may send ballistic missiles to Russia.
Tehran has repeatedly asked Kyiv to submit evidence for the use of Iranian-made drones by Russia in the Ukraine war, but the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky has so far provided no proof.
Back in mid-March, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei dismissed Tehran's involvement in the war as a sheer lie.
“We categorically deny any presence in the Ukraine war. And such a thing is not true at all,” he stressed.
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.
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