The United States will not wait forever for Tehran's response on returning to a 2015 nuclear deal, US President Joe Biden said on Thursday, following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
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The United States and Iran have been holding indirect talks in an attempt to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement under which Iran had limited its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.
"We've laid out for the leadership of Iran what we're willing to accept in order to get back into the JCPOA. We're waiting for their response. When that will come, I'm not certain. But we are not going to wait forever."
Video: Reuters
Resurrecting the nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama's administration and abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018 was a key priority for Biden as he entered office. But administration officials have become increasingly pessimistic about the chances of Iran returning to compliance.
Biden was asked on whether he would mention the slain Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi when he visits Saudi Arabia this week, Biden said, "My views on Kashoggi have been made absolutely positively clear, I have never been quiet talking about human rights, the reason I am going to Saudi Arabia is much broader, to promote US interests in a way that we have an opportunity to reassert our mistake of walking away from our influence in the Middle East." Biden added, "I want to make sure we continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum."\
Lapid said at the news conference that "the only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force," he said. "The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table."
Biden defended his efforts to rejuvenate the international agreement intended to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, a strategy that Israel opposes. "I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome," he said.
They spoke shortly after signing a joint declaration in which the US vowed to use "all elements of its national power" to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
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