On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that “for those that are worried about sanctions relief coming immediately, with respect to the JCPOA, for the Iranian regime,” as they’re brutalizing protestors, “that’s just not going to happen any time soon.” Because the parties are farther apart than they were, which is an “unfortunate” circumstance.
After Kirby mentioned the possibility of further sanctions in response to the brutality against the protestors, host Pamela Brown asked, “On that note, is it time to officially pull the plug on the Iran nuclear deal talks? I mean, can the U.S. really dangle sanctions relief while Iran is killing protestors in the streets?”
Kirby responded, “I’ll tell you, there’s not a lot of dangling going on right now, Pamela. We are not anywhere close here to inking a return to the JCPOA. We are, in fact, farther apart now than we were just about a month ago. And that’s unfortunate, but that’s where we are. So, for those that are worried about sanctions relief coming immediately, with respect to the JCPOA, for the Iranian regime, that’s just not going to happen any time soon. What will happen is we’re going to continue to hold the Iranian regime accountable for the way they treat their own citizens and protestors inside their country, and what will happen is we’re going to continue to make sure that Iran cannot achieve a nuclear weapons capability. Now, obviously, the president would prefer to do that through diplomacy. We still would prefer to do that through diplomacy, but we have to make sure we have other options available to us and we’ll do that. Because no problem in the Middle East, and I mean none, including what’s going on inside Iran right now, none of them get easier to solve with Iran having a nuclear weapon at their disposal.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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