Ebrahim Raisi
Ebrahim RaisiREUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday accused the United States of "dragging their feet" instead of making a decision to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, AFP reported.

"Today, it is the Americans who have to make a decision, but they are delaying and dragging their feet", Raisi was quoted as having told reporters in Tehran.

The 2015 agreement with major powers, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been on life support since then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018, but the US and Iran have been holding indirect talks since April 2021 in an effort to revive it.

Iran recently announced it had submitted its comments to the US response to the European Union’s draft for reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

While Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at the time that Iran’s response was prepared based on a constructive approach, a senior Biden administration official told Politico, “We are studying Iran’s response, but the bottom line is that it is not at all encouraging.”

A US official said late last month that the efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have “hit a wall” because of Iran's insistence on the closure of the UN nuclear watchdog's investigations.

Last week, State Department spokesperson Ned Price reiterated that “it’s no secret that a deal does not appear imminent. A deal does not appear in the offing, at least not at the moment, because Iran’s demands have consistently gone beyond the four corners of the JCPOA.”

His comments came days after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that while negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal continue, the Biden administration does not expect a new deal will be reached "anytime soon".