US needs Iran deal, should agree to Iran’s demands to revive it: Iran paper

In an article published on Sunday, the Kayhan daily referred to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 26, where he said the US believed returning to the Iran deal was the best path to take with Iran.

Blinken said, “We continue to believe that getting back into compliance with the agreement would be the best way to address the nuclear challenge posed by Iran and to make sure that an Iran that is already acting with incredible aggression doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Kayhan said those remarks indicated the benefits of rejoining the deal for the US, and it now had to agree to the Iranian demands to do so. The comments show that in order to revive the agreement, “Washington will have to accept Iran’s conditions about the effective removal of the sanctions and the verifiability of that removal and to offer credible guarantees.”

Until recently, Iran and the US had been negotiating indirectly and via Iran’s co-signatories to the deal in order to revive the deal and potentially have the United States back in compliance.

Iran has put forth a number of demands, including that the US provide guarantees that it would not unilaterally withdraw again as it did in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.

The negotiations stopped recently in order for political decision making by the sides involved.