Biden sets new demands for Iran nuke deal return: NYT
President-elect meets workers and business owners hit by pandemic, urges Congress to act; Trump openly floats idea of 2024 White House run
US President-elect Joe Biden will insist Iran agrees to new demands if it wants the US to return to a nuclear deal and lit sanctions, The New York Times (NYT) said on Wednesday.
The Times said the Biden administration would seek to extend the duration of “restrictions on Iran’s production of fissile material that could be used to make a (nuclear) bomb” in a new round of negotiations.
Iran would also have to address its “malign” regional activities through proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen in the talks that would have to include its Arab neighbours like Saudi Arabia, the report said.
In the Times interview published on Wednesday, the incoming US president stood by those views, saying: “It’s going to be hard, but yeah.”
“Look, there’s a lot of talk about precision missiles and all range of other things that are destabilising the region,” Biden was quoted as saying.
But, he added, “the best way to achieve geting some stability in the region” was to deal “with the nuclear programme.”
Biden warned that if Iran acquired a bomb, it would spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, “and the last goddamn thing we need in that part of the world is a buildup of nuclear capability.”
“In consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile programme,” he told the Times.
Biden was cited as saying that the United States always had the option to international snap back sanctions if need be, and that Iran knew that.
Biden was to talk with workers and business owners on Wednesday about how the coronavirus has affected them as he prepares to confront his highest priority on taking office: the resurgent pandemic in the United States.
Biden told NYT that he would try to help resolve a monthslong standoff in Congress between Republicans and Democrats over a stimulus package for businesses affected by shutdowns as well as the millions who have lost jobs.
“You have over 10 million people out there who are worried (how) they can pay their next mortgage payment,” Biden said in the interview, and “you have a significantly higher number of people who have no ability to pay their rent.”
Failure on the issue could have political consequences for Republicans currently in the majority in the US Senate, he told the newspaper.
“When you have cops and firefighters and first responders across the board being laid off, when you’re not geting the kind of distribution of vaccines out to rural America, it has to have some consequences,” he was quoted as saying.
Top Senate Republican Mitch Mcconnell said on Tuesday that Congress should include fresh coronavirus stimulus in a must-pass $1.4 trillion spending bill aimed at heading off a government shutdown.
US health officials say they plan to begin vaccinating Americans against the disease as soon as mid-december.
Healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities like nursing homes are expected to be first in line.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump — who finds himself more and more isolated, with his quixotic quest to overturn Biden’s election victory squashed at every turn — is openly musing about a second run at the US presidency in 2024.
“It’s been an amazing four years. We are trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years,” he told guests at a White House Christmas party on Tuesday.
The event, atended by several Republican Party power brokers, was closed to the media, but a video of the outgoing president’s speech quickly went public.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Bill Barr said on Tuesday.
Barr’s statement was all the more powerful because he is a staunch Trump ally.
“It’s time to look forward. If you want to run for re-election in four years, fine, do it. But everything we’re seeing right now, there’s not a path,” said Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who manages the state’s voting systems.