{"id":92661,"date":"2021-02-09T08:30:54","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T13:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=92661"},"modified":"2021-02-09T08:30:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T13:30:54","slug":"auto-draft-489","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/02\/09\/auto-draft-489\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Emphasizes No Major Change to Iran Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

VOA \u2014 The White House is clarifying its position on Iran after President Joe Biden gave an interview in which he indicated that\u202fthe United States would not lift sanctions until Tehran stops enriching uranium.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to be very clear, the president never said that exactly,\u201d White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.<\/p>\n

Biden, in a television interview aired Sunday, nodded\u202fin agreement\u202fwhen\u202fCBS anchor Norah O\u2019Donnell\u202fasked\u202fabout\u202flifting sanctions\u202fand\u202fwhether Iran must first\u202fhalt\u202fenrichment of\u202furanium at a higher level than allowed under the\u202fJoint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement (JCPOA) from which the United States withdrew under the Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we were announcing a major policy change,\u202fwe would do it in a different way than a slight head nod,\u201d Psaki\u202fsaid\u202fduring Monday\u2019s White House press briefing when asked about the president\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall,\u202fhis position has remained exactly what it has been,\u202fwhich is that if Iran comes into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States\u202fwould\u202fdo the same, and then use that as a platform to build a larger and stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern,\u201d the press secretary\u202fsaid.<\/p>\n

State Department officials are echoing that message and emphasizing they are discussing the issue with allies, rather than seeking dialog directly with Tehran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to getting engagement with the Iranians, we’re not there yet,\u201d State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday. \u201cWe want to again make sure that we have our ducks in a row with our closest friends, our closest partners and allies,\u201d as well as with the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n

Biden has said he wants the\u202fUnited States\u202fto rejoin the nuclear treaty.<\/p>\n

When asked directly in\u202fthe\u202fCBS News interview whether the U.S. would lift sanctions first to get Iran to return to negotiations, Biden replied simply, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"(FILES)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
FILE – A file handout picture released by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization on Nov. 6, 2019, shows the interior of the Fordow (Fordo) Uranium Conversion Facility in Qom, in the north of the country.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pact had allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a 3.67% concentration level. But since mid-2019, it had pushed enrichment to a 4.5% level, and then last month to 20% \u2014 a level it had achieved before the accord.<\/p>\n

Experts say Tehran now has enough low-enriched uranium stockpiled for at least two nuclear\u202fweapons,\u202fif\u202fit chooses to pursue their manufacture. But Iranian officials, to the long skepticism of Western governments, have\u202fmaintained that\u202fIran\u2019s\u202fnuclear program is for peaceful purposes.<\/p>\n

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on state TV that if the United States wants \u201cIran to return to its commitments, the U.S. must lift all sanctions in practice, then we will do verification and see if the sanctions were lifted correctly, then we will return to our commitments.”<\/p>\n

Khamenei\u2019s televised remarks were his first since Biden\u2019s January 20 inauguration.<\/p>\n

But in a CNN interview after Khamenei’s remarks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad\u202fJavad\u202fZarif said that there was no precondition that Iran receive compensation from the United States for the cost of sanctions imposed by Washington before restoring the nuclear pact.<\/p>\n

Psaki also responded Monday\u202fto questions about why Biden has yet to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping, although\u202fthe president\u202fhas talked with numerous other world leaders.<\/p>\n

Psaki, noting Biden\u2019s calls with leaders of Japan, South Korea and Australia, said China was \u201cof course an important topic of conversation during those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The press secretary added that\u202fChina\u202fwas also discussed\u202fin calls with European\u202fleaders,\u202f\u201cso part of our strategy is certainly engaging with partners in the region and allies and doing those calls and engagements first and also having consultations with Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president \u201chas not called every global leader yet,\u202fhe has not had engagements with all of them and I’m sure he will do more of that in the weeks ahead,\u201d Psaki\u202fadded.<\/p>\n

In the CBS interview,\u202fBiden said\u202fof Xi, \u201cThere was no reason not to call him.\u201d He offered some praise of Xi but warned that relations between the countries would be different than they had been under Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very bright.\u202fHe\u2019s very tough,\u201d Biden said of Xi. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have \u2014 and I don\u2019t mean it as a criticism, just the reality \u2014 he doesn\u2019t have a democratic, small D, bone in his body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said to him all along that we need not have a conflict,\u201d\u202fsaid the president,\u202frecalling discussions with Xi when Biden was the U.S. vice president from 2009 to 2017. \u201cBut there\u2019s going to be extreme competition. And I\u2019m not going to do it the way that he knows. And that\u2019s because he\u2019s sending signals, as well. I\u2019m not going to do it the way Trump did. We\u2019re going to focus on international rules of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 The White House is clarifying its position on Iran after President Joe Biden gave an interview in which he indicated that\u202fthe United States would not lift sanctions until Tehran stops enriching uranium. \u201cJust to be very clear, the president never said that exactly,\u201d White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92665,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92661\/revisions\/92665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}