China, Germany, France, Russia and Britain are in talks to bring the U.S. back into the Iran nuclear deal, but say they need more time.
President Biden hasn’t yet picked an ambassador to Israel. What does that say about U.S.-Israeli relations, and who are the names in the mix?“We have much work and little time left. Against that background, we would have hoped for more progress this week,” the senior diplomats said talking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named.
“We have yet to come to an understanding on the most critical points. Success is by no means guaranteed, but not impossible.” In Washington, the State Department had no immediate comment on reports of progress, incremental or not, and said the U.S. assessment of the talks remained where it was on Thursday. On that day, State Department spokesman Ned Price said there had been some movement but that an agreement was far from done or even guaranteed.“I can say that now our discussions have reached a maturity, both in the disputed topics and in the sections that we are agreed on,” he told Iranian state TV.
The U.S. did not have a representative at the table when the diplomats met in Vienna because President Trump unilaterally pulled the country out of the deal in 2018. Trump also restored and augmented sanctions to try to force Iran into renegotiating the pact with more concessions.