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Biden: Iran is 'moving closer' to nuclear weapons
The president-elect outlines in CNN interview a multilateral policy, arguing Tehran has 'increased the ability to have nuclear material' after Trump pulled out of the 2015 deal
By Haaretz, Reuters
December
05, 2020 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Haaretz"
- U.S. President-elect Joe Biden urged in
an interview on Thursday a multilateral and
diplomatic approach to tackling Iran's nuclear
program, and reiterated his determination to
prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Biden told CNN that he remains committed to the
principles of the 2015 nuclear deal, before
going on to criticize President Donald Trump's
withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action in 2018.
"The bottom line is that we can't allow Iran to
get nuclear weapons," he said. Trump "has pulled
out to get something tougher, and what have they
done? They've increased the ability for them to
have nuclear material," Biden argued. "They're
moving closer to the ability to be able to have
enough material for a nuclear weapon."
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Biden, interviewed alongside Vice
President-elect Kamala Harris, also stressed the
importance of a coalition in dealing with Iran:
"We cannot do this alone. And that's why we have
to be part of a larger group, dealing not only
with Iran, but with Russia, with China and a
whole range of other issues."
The president-elect also said it was "hard to
tell how much" the recent assassination of
Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
would impact any potential rapprochement with
Tehran, after a senior U.S. administration
official and top Iranian officials claimed that
Israel was behind the assassination earlier this
week.
Despite the acknowledgement it would "hard,"
Biden also redoubled his commitment to end
sanctions on Iran in an interview with the New
York Times published on Wednesday. “If Iran
returns to strict compliance with the nuclear
deal, the United States would rejoin the
agreement as a starting point for follow-on
negotiations,” he told the the Times' columnist
Thomas Friedman.
Biden and his national security team will seek a
further round of negotiations to extend the
15-year-duration of the restrictions on Iran’s
production of fissile material that could be
used to make a bomb. They will also look to
address Iran's regional activities through proxy
groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on
Thursday that it will fully comply with the 2015
deal aimed at preventing it from developing
nuclear weapons if both the United States and
Europe honor their original commitments.
Biden, who will be sworn in as president on
January 20, also discussed the coronavirus
outbreak, which has claimed 273,000 American
lives. He told CNN that he will instruct
Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days
of his term, and that he backs a compromise bill
on coronavirus relief before he takes office.
The former vice president also pledged to take
the coronavirus vaccine publicly in order to
demonstrate its safety.
Amid Trump's unfounded claims of electoral
fraud, Biden was also asked about the importance
of the outgoing president's attendance of his
January inauguration. Although he downplayed
"the personal consequence" to himself, he
insisted that it is "important in the sense that
we are able to demonstrate the end of this chaos
that he's created, that there is peaceful
transfer of power with the competing parties
standing there, shaking hands and moving on."