Gulf states should be consulted by the new president of the United States, Joe Biden, if the country decides to return to the nuclear agreement with Iran, said Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat, Faisal bin Farhan, warning that such consultation is the only way for a sustainable agreement. Joe Biden has signaled that he will return to the nuclear deal with Iran and that he supports the 2015 deal negotiated under Barack Obama and his own vice presidency.
A return to the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), would be supported by the United States’ allies in Europe, but it would concern the Gulf States, which criticized the involvement with Tehran.
Biden said he would be concerned about adding Iran’s Arab neighbors to an even more comprehensive agreement, but resistance from countries like Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its archrival, could lose the plan for the new White House tenant.
“First of all, what we hope is that we will be consulted, that we and our other regional friends will be consulted about what happens in relation to the negotiations with Iran,” the Saudi foreign minister told AFP.
“The only way to reach an agreement that is sustainable is through these consultations,” he said, during a security conference in Manama, Bahrain. “I think we saw, as a result of the side effects of JCPOA, which did not involve regional countries, an increase in mistrust in relation to regional security issues.”
Asked if the Biden government was already in contact about the new agreement, Prince Faisal said there was none yet, but that “we are ready to get involved with the Biden government as soon as he takes office”.
The United States imposed sanctions on Iran after Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018. In response, Iran began to exceed the limits set by the agreement, while saying it would quickly return to compliance if the United States went back. .
Biden and his team are working on a more comprehensive agreement that takes into account the Israeli issue, but also Tehran’s external activities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Implicitly, this means that Biden wants to bring together important regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union.
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