Iran Curbs Nuclear Inspectors, but Appears to Leave Space for a Deal
The new limits appeared to be lighter than the country had threatened, giving Western nations three months to see if they can revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.
After a weekend trip to Tehran, Rafael Grossi, right, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Sunday that his inspectors would have “less access” to Iran’s nuclear facilities as of Tuesday.Credit.Wana News Agency/Via Reuters
Published Feb. 21, 2021Updated April 6, 2021
Iran appears to have partly lifted its threat to sharply limit international inspections of its nuclear facilities starting on Tuesday, giving Western nations three months to see if the beginnings of a new diplomatic initiative with the United States and Europe will restore the 2015 nuclear deal.
A U.S.-Iran deal is ultimately possible because Iran needs money, analyst says
CNBC 2/22/2021 Abigail Ng
Washington and Tehran will ultimately be able to strike a nuclear agreement because Iran needs relief from economic sanctions, according to Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The Biden administration last week offered to begin talks with Tehran, but Iran has not agreed, and has stressed that the U.S. must lift sanctions first. All that you re seeing, all the threats, the terrorism, threats in the Gulf, the seizing of tankers, the nuclear program, taking hostages, these are all various extortion tactics to get money and get sanctions relief, said Goldberg. That means that a deal is possible.
China’s Role in the Coronavirus Pandemic: Negligent or Criminal?
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“If the United States truly respects facts, it should open the biological lab at Fort Detrick, give more transparency to issues like its 200-plus overseas bio-labs, invite WHO experts to conduct origin-tracing in the United States, and respond to the concerns from the international community with real actions.”
– Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at the January 18 daily press briefing
This was not the first time the Chinese foreign ministry suggested the COVID-19 pandemic started in America. On March 12, 2020, another ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, stated in a tweet that coronavirus patient zero was in America, making official what Chinese government sources had been suggesting for some time. His tweet also indicated the U.S. Army brought the disease to Wuhan, a city of 11 million and the capital of Hubei province.
In this Feb. 1, 2020, file photo Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden smiles as former Secretary of State John Kerry, left, takes the podium to speak at a campaign stop at the South Slope Community Center in . more > By Ben Wolfgang and Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Sunday, February 21, 2021
President Trump in 2019 sought to open a back channel of communication with top Iranian officials and saw the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September as a potential opportunity to defuse escalating tension with Tehran, but the effort failed.
Two months earlier, however, a different back channel was thriving in New York. Iran’s smooth, English-speaking foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, met with Robert Malley, who was President Obama’s Middle East adviser, in an apparent bid to undermine the Trump team and lay the groundwork for post-Trump relation