A "window of opportunity" of a few weeks remains to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Tuesday in a speech to lawmakers.
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Colonna told lawmakers the situation was no longer tenable and accused Iran of using delaying tactics and, during talks in Doha two weeks ago, of going back on previously agreed positions while forging ahead with its uranium enrichment program.
"There is still a window of opportunity ... for Iran to finally decide to accept an accord which it worked to build, but time is passing," Colonna said, warning that if Iran kept on its current trajectory it would be a threshold nuclear arms state.
"Time is passing. Tehran must realize this," she said, adding that the US mid-term elections would make it even harder to seal a deal.
"The window of opportunity will close in a few weeks. There will not be a better accord to the one which is on the table."
Asked if the United States concurred with Colonna's view, a senior US official pointed to Monday's comment by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to reporters that "we have not marked a date on the calendar."
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the senior US official acknowledged that the chances of reaching a deal were dwindling and said Washington had not heard anything new from Tehran since the indirect talks in Doha.
"Every day that goes by without a deal makes reaching a deal less likely," the official said. "We have not heard anything since Doha that is a change from Doha."
Last week, the US envoy for the talks said Iran had added unrelated demands during the latest indirect discussions and had made alarming progress on enriching uranium.
With US President Joe Biden due in Israel on Wednesday, Israeli officials will attempt to persuade him to drop the idea of a new nuclear deal or at least insist on a number of conditions that would make it difficult for the Tehran regime to progress toward nuclear weapons.
Biden is also slated to visit Saudi Arabia, where the government is expected to press the US administration to cut ties with Iran.
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