The United States showed some impatience on Wednesday at Iran's lack of response to a possible face-to-face meeting to launch the process of saving the Iran nuclear deal.
"Our patience has limits!"
, launched the spokesman of the American diplomacy Ned Price to reporters who asked him how long the American offer of dialogue would remain on the table.
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He said that the return to
"verifiable and permanent constraints on Iran's nuclear program"
was
"an urgent challenge".
Joe Biden's government said six days ago that it was accepting an invitation from Europeans to a future informal meeting with Iran and the other signatories of the 2015 agreement supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring the atomic bomb ( Germany, China, France, United Kingdom and Russia).
But since then, the Iranian authorities have not responded.
"We are waiting to know what will be Iran's response to the European invitation,"
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from this international agreement in 2018, believing it to be insufficient.
In the process, he reinstated all US sanctions that had been lifted in exchange for restrictions on Iran's nuclear program.
For its part, Tehran has begun to free itself from its nuclear commitments to protest against Washington's punitive measures, and demands their lifting to get back on track.
Joe Biden has promised to return to the 2015 agreement "
if"
Iran again meets its commitments.
The
“sequencing”
of the decisions of each country must be, in the mind of the United States, the object of this direct dialogue with Iran.
The US government has so far refused to discuss any goodwill gestures prior to a meeting with the Iranian authorities.
"The details of what could be on the table in the future, we want to discuss it, with our partners, in the context of the offer"
of
"discussions with the Iranians",
insisted Ned Price.
He also refused to make the return in the 2015 agreement conditional on the release by the Islamic Republic of
“unjustly detained”
American nationals
.
"We do not have a higher priority than their return"
, he assured.
However,
"we do not want to link their fate to a problem which is complex, difficult, and which can stretch over the long term"
, he added.
Several Republican tenors called on Joe Biden not to return to the agreement without having obtained the release of these detainees.