Biden urged to rejoin accord

TEHRAN — Iran’s president called on Presidentelect Joe Biden to return the U. S. to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a staterun news agency reported Sunday.

“Now, an opportunity has come up for the next U. S. administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms,” the staterun IRNA news agency quoted Hassan Rouhani as saying.

Under President Trump, tensions between the U. S. and Iran have escalated. One of Trump’s signature foreign policy moves was unilaterally withdrawing the U. S. from Iran’s nuclear deal in 2018, which had seen Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The U. S. has since reimposed punishing sanctions on Iran that have crippled its economy, which was further battered by the coronavirus outbreak. In an effort to pressure Europe to find a way around the sanctions, Iran has slowly abandoned the limits of the nuclear deal.

“The people of Iran, though their heroic resistance against the imposed economic war, proved that the U. S. maximum pressure policy was doomed to fail,” Rouhani said.

Also Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted that “the world is watching” to see if the new Biden administration would depart from Trump’s approach toward Iran and seek international cooperation.