US President Joe Biden said on the sidelines of a recent election rally that the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is “dead,” but the US would not formally announce it, according to a video that surfaced on social media late Monday.
The video was recorded during an election rally in Oceanside, California. Biden is seen in a short conversation with a woman who attended the rally and who asked him to announce that the Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is dead.
Biden responded that he would not “for a lot of reasons" before adding, “It is dead, but we are not gonna announce it. Long story."
The woman replied that the Iranian regime doesn’t represent the people to which the President replied, “I know they don’t represent you. But they will have a nuclear weapon that they'll represent.”
Biden’s comments followed indications that the indirect talks between the US and Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are stalled.
Iran in September 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 said the Iranian response "is not at all encouraging.”
A US official later said 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.
More recently, the US envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said that Iran's crackdown on protesters and the sale of drones to Russia have turned the United States' focus away from reviving the nuclear deal.
Asked by Axios about the video of Biden, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said, “The JCPOA is not our focus right now. It’s not on the agenda."
"We don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon," the spokesperson said, pointing to Iran's crackdown on protesters and support for Russia in the war in Ukraine. "Our focus is on practical ways to confront them in these areas."
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett responded to Biden's comments and said, "A tremendous achievement of our government. Quietly and wisely, in a series of diplomatic and other actions, we managed to stop a return to the nuclear agreement without creating a rift with the US."
"We also moved the fight against Iranian terrorism (not only against the nuclear program) from Israel's border to Iranian soil. Hitting the head of the octopus to weaken its arms. The new government must continue doing this," Bennett added.