US Official: Reviving Iran Nuclear Deal Not a Question of Who Goes 1st

An Iranian flag outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port town of Bushehr, 1,200 Kms south of Tehran, April 3, 2007. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI
An Iranian flag outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port town of Bushehr, 1,200 Kms south of Tehran, April 3, 2007. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI
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US Official: Reviving Iran Nuclear Deal Not a Question of Who Goes 1st

An Iranian flag outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port town of Bushehr, 1,200 Kms south of Tehran, April 3, 2007. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI
An Iranian flag outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port town of Bushehr, 1,200 Kms south of Tehran, April 3, 2007. AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI

Who might take the first step to resume compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is not an issue for the United States, a US official said on Friday, suggesting greater flexibility on the part of Washington.

“That’s not the issue, who goes first,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“Like, we are going to go at 8, they are going to go at 10? Or they go at 8, we go at 10? That’s not the issue,” the official said. “The issue is do we agree on what steps are going to be taken mutually.”

The Biden administration has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with the deal, under which US and other economic sanctions on Tehran were removed in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program to make it harder to develop a nuclear weapon -- an ambition Tehran denies.

US President Joe Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed US sanctions, prompting Iran, after waiting more than a year, to violate some of the pact’s nuclear restrictions in retaliation.

The United States and Iran have yet to agree even to meet about reviving the deal and are communicating indirectly via European nations, Western officials have said.

The odds of their making progress to revive the deal before Iran holds a presidential election in June have dwindled after Tehran opted to take a tougher stance before returning to talks, officials have said.

In a speech on Sunday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Washington must ease sanctions before Tehran would resume compliance.

The US official sought to dispel what he said was an erroneous view that the United States insists on Iran’s full compliance before Washington would take any steps to resume its own commitments.
He also said it was not the US stance that Tehran must take a first step to comply before Washington would take a step.

“It is absolutely not our position that Iran has to come into full compliance before we do anything,” the official said.

“As for, if we agree on mutual steps, like we’ll do X, they do Y, the issue of sequence will not be the issue. I don’t know who would go first. I mean we could – it could be simultaneous,” he said. “There’s a thousand iterations but ... I can tell you now, if this breaks down, it’s not going to be because of that.”

He added: “We will be pragmatic about that.”

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine last year when he was a presidential candidate, Biden said: “Tehran must return to strict compliance with the deal. If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement.”

That language, echoed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials since Biden took office on Jan. 20, has been widely taken to mean Iran had to make the first move to comply.

The US official, however, disputed this.

“It doesn’t say when,” the official said. “It is not a statement about sequence.”

Robert Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said he had not understood Biden’s Foreign Affairs article to mean Iran necessarily had to go first, “although it could certainly be read that way.”

“Several other formulations administration officials have used -- such as ‘the US will return to compliance if Iran does the same’ -- seem quite neutral on sequence and don’t suggest to me that Iran must go first,” Einhorn said.



United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
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United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo

The United Nations has been planning for the possible return of Donald Trump and the cuts to US funding and engagement with world body that are likely to come with his second term as president.
There was a sense of "déjà vu and some trepidation" at the 193-member world body, said one senior Asian diplomat, as Republican Trump won Tuesday's US election over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"There is also some hope that a transactional administration will engage the UN on some areas even if it were to defund some dossiers. After all, what bigger and better global stage is there than the United Nations?" said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A US retreat at the UN could open the door for China, which has been building its influence in global diplomacy.
Trump has offered few specifics about foreign policy in his second term but supporters say the force of his personality and his "peace through strength" approach will help bend foreign leaders to his will. He has vowed to solve the war in Ukraine and is expected to give strong support to Israel in its conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Among the top concerns at the UN are whether the United States will decide to contribute less money to the world body and withdraw from key multinational institutions and agreements, including the world Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement.
US funding is the immediate worry. Washington is the UN's largest contributor - with China second - accounting for 22% of the core UN budget and 27% of the peacekeeping budget.
A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its General Assembly vote.
'EXTREMELY HARD'
Trump came to power last time proposing to cut about a third off US diplomacy and aid budgets, which included steep reductions in funding for UN peacekeeping and international organizations. But Congress, which sets the federal US government budget, pushed back on Trump's proposal.
A UN spokesperson said at the time the proposed cuts would have made it impossible to continue all essential work.
"The UN secretariat has known that they could face a Trump comeback all year. There has been prudent planning behind the scenes on how to manage potential US budget cuts," said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
"So (UN Secretary-General Antonio) Guterres and his team are not totally unprepared, but they know the next year will be extremely hard," he said.
Trump's team did not immediately respond to a query about his policy toward the UN after he takes office in January.
During his first term, Trump complained that the US was shouldering an unfair burden of the cost of the UN and pushed for reforms. Washington is traditionally slow to pay and when Trump left office in 2021 the US was in arrears about $600 million for the core budget and $2 billion for peacekeeping.
According to UN figures, President Joe Biden's administration currently owes $995 million for the core UN budget and $862 million for the peacekeeping budget.
"I don't want to pre-empt or speak about policies that may or may not happen, but we work with member states in the way we've always worked with member states," Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.
In 2026, the UN Security Council will choose Guterres' successor, a decision in which the Trump administration will hold a veto power.
'GREAT NEWS FOR CHINA'
During Trump's first term, he was critical of the United Nations and wary of multilateralism. He announced plans to quit the World Health Organization, and pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN cultural agency UNESCO, a global climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
When Biden succeeded him in 2021, he rescinded the US decision to withdraw from the WHO and returned the US to UNESCO and the climate agreement. Trump's campaign has said he would quit the climate deal again if he won office.
"It will survive. But, of course, it will probably survive severely undermined," Guterres told Reuters in September of a second withdrawal from the climate pact by Trump.
Ahead of the US election, a senior European diplomat said a Trump win would be "great news for China," recalling that during Trump's first term "the Chinese influence in the UN increased a lot because it was an open bar for the Chinese."
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump again cuts UN funding and withdraws from international pacts "it will just give China the opportunity to present itself as the supporter number one of multilateralism."
US funding for some other UN agencies is also in question. One of the first moves by the Trump administration in 2017 was to cut funding for UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the international body's agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries.
Trump's administration said UNFPA "supports ... a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The UN said that was an inaccurate perception. Biden restored US funding for UNFPA.
If Trump again cuts funding, UNFPA warned that "women will lose lifesaving services in some of the world's most devastating crises" in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine.
Under Trump's first presidency, the US also opposed long-agreed international language on women's sexual and reproductive rights and health in UN resolutions over concern that it would advance abortion rights.
A senior African diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up the impending return of Trump for multilateralism and the United Nations: "The heavens help us."