US National Security Council coordinator John Kirby on Tuesday said Washington understands Israel’s concerns over the nuclear deal with Iran, but added that President Joe Biden remains determined to rejoin the JCPOA and use diplomacy as a means to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities.
In an interview with Fox News, Kirby was pressed on the concerns shared by Israel and surrounding Arab countries over the progress in nuclear talks with Iran. Those countries have warned that the US funding will be used to finance Iran's terror network that will only further destabilize the region.
"Our allies in Israel, they're not comfortable with it. They're the prime target. Our Arab allies also not comfortable getting back into a deal with Iran," Fox News host Martha MacCallum said. "So does this isolate us out of that equation when we’re doing something that all of those partners are not happy with?"
"Quite the contrary," Kirby responded, arguing that it was the withdrawal from the deal under former President Trump in 2018 that isolated the US from its allies. When the US was active in the agreement, he said, it was Iran who isolated itself by violating the same deal the White House is determined to revive.
"When we were in the deal, Iran was the one that was isolating itself by not accommodating to it, So look, we were isolating ourselves by pulling out," he said. "It was a decision that was opposed by our European allies and partners and many other countries around the world. Now we want back in the deal. We want Iran back in the deal so that we can eliminate the outcome of them having a nuclear weapon."
"Any problem in the Middle East only gets more difficult to solve when you have a nuclear-armed Iran," Kirby argued.
He added that the revived agreement would reinstate the "most strenuous inspection" protocols on Iranian facilities.
"This is not about trust. It’s about verify," he said. "We can get inspectors on the ground and see what the Iranians are doing. If they cheat on the deal, we’ll know. We’ll have a lot [more] of transparency and visibility than we do right now, which is to say, we have none."
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Monday expressed some optimism about the prospects of salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, but stressed that divisions remain between the United States and Iran.
“A deal is closer now than it was two weeks ago, but the outcome of these ongoing discussions still remains uncertain as gaps do remain,” Ned Price said at a State Department briefing, according to CNN.
Iran last Monday submitted its response to the European Union's proposed text to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The proposal, submitted on July 26 by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, has been described by the EU as a “final draft”.
The European Union and United States are studying Iran’s response to the EU proposal.
On Monday, Price said that the US was still conducting consultations, telling reporters, “We are working as quickly as we can, as methodically as we can and as carefully as we can see to it that our response is complete. It takes into account the Iranian feedback and we’ll provide that to the EU as soon as we’re able.”
He also said the US was “conveying (its) feedback directly and privately to the EU,” which serves as mediator between the two sides.