Iran: US failure in decision-making main obstacle to JCPOA revival

Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Nasser Kanaani took to Twitter on Friday to react to remarks by Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, who claimed in an interview with the CNN earlier this week that Tehran was facing a choice between renewing the nuclear deal and siding with the Russians.

Malley claimed that Iran “can opt for a position of relative dependency on Russia, which itself is isolated internationally…or it can choose to come back into the deal that’s been negotiated…and have normal economic relations with its neighborhood and with Europe and the rest of the world.”

In his tweet, however, Kanaani said Iran’s policy toward neighbors was not dependent on the 2015 nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Washington’s permission.

“The fake dichotomy between the JCPOA (to which Iran is still a party unlike the US) and good relations between Iran and its neighbors, including Russia, does not hide the fact that lack of decision making on the part of perfidious America is the main obstacle to reaching an agreement on restoring the nuclear deal,” the official raid.

The US official’s remarks come amid anger in Washington over flourishing Tehran-Moscow ties, which saw a visit by President Vladimir Putin to Iran earlier this week.