Report: Biden Team Divided on Rejoining Iran Nuclear Deal
US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in campaign event at Dallas High School in Dallas, Pennsylvania, US, October 24, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.
i24 News – US President-elect Joe Biden’s advisers are divided on the prospect of rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Israel Hayom reported Monday.
According to the report, while the Biden campaign has said it wanted to rejoin the accord that US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of in 2018, some of Biden’s aides are pushing against it.
The move would waste the headway made by the Trump administration in pressuring Tehran through its maximum pressure policy, they argue.
The way to move forward, they purportedly assert, is to keep up the pressure from the sanctions slapped on Tehran by the Trump team to force Iran to expand the deal.
The approach essentially mimics Trump’s strategy, with the sitting president betting on the sanctions to force Tehran to give up its ballistic missile program and support for regional terrorist groups — the areas that were not covered by the 2015 accord, which only zoomed in on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran denies that its nuclear aspirations have a military dimension and angrily lashes out at demands to give up the ballistic missile development project as well as regional meddling.
After Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, Iran has been gradually rolling back its own commitments to the agreement.
According to media reports, it recently notified the UN nuclear watchdog of an intention to install more advanced centrifuges underground and rebuilt a centrifuge assembly center destroyed by sabotage in summer.