US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied that an agreement between the Biden Administration and the Iranian government on Iran's nuclear program.
"There is no agreement in the offing, even as we continue to be willing to explore diplomatic paths," Blinken said at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York Tuesday.
The Israeli government has been concerned that the Biden Administration is on the verge of an interim agreement which would only temporarily slow Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon while providing the regime a lifeline through sanctions relief.
Blinken said that Iran must "not take actions that further escalate the tensions" in the Middle East, adding that the US government would judge Iran "by its actions."
He noted that while the administration had attempted to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but "Iran either couldn't or wouldn't do what was necessary to get back into compliance."
Blinken also addressed the prospects of a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. "It is incredibly challenging, hard, not something that can happen overnight, but it's also a real prospect and one that we're working on," he said.
"Both Saudi Arabia and Israel of course are interested in the prospect of normalization," Blinken said, but he stated that such an agreement is unlikely while the current security escalation in Judea and Samaria is ongoing, what he called a "fire in Israel's own backyard."