GOP Senator Claims 'Weak' Biden Counted on Putin 'to Get Iran to Cut' Nuclear Deal With US

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has accused US President Joe Biden of being "weak" and relying on Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to help revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In an interview with Fox News, Cotton focused on the future of what he described as the "terrible" Iran deal in light of Russia's ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, meant to demilitarise and de-Nazify the country.

The senator claimed that Biden has been "counting on Vladimir Putin to be his lawyer for the last year to try to get Iran to cut a deal with us". Cotton attributed Biden's "weakness" last year to the president's purported unwillingness "to do anything to offend Vladimir Putin and upset the apple cart with this nuclear deal with Iran".

"And now, as they were just about to strike another terrible deal, Iran and Russia walk away from the table, because they know they have Joe Biden over the barrel that he desperately wants this nuclear deal, and they can extract more concessions from him, both in Ukraine and in Iran. There's a direct connection between how weak Joe Biden has been on Iran and the war that Vladimir Putin is waging in Ukraine right now", Cotton stated.

He spoke after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters on Friday that negotiations in Vienna on reviving the JCPOA had been suspended in order "to resolve the remaining issues and nuances of the final agreement".

The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, cited "external factors" as he admitted that a pause is needed in talks on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

"I will, with my team, continue to be in touch with all JCPOA participants and the US to overcome the current situation and to close the agreement", Borrell tweeted, noting that the final text of an agreement is "essentially ready and on the table". He did not elaborate on when the Vienna talks will be reconvened, also failing to clarify just what the "external factors" are.

Vienna Talks

The JCPOA was inked in 2015 by the UK, Russia, China, the US, France, the EU plus Germany, and stipulated imposing restrictions on the development of the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In May 2018, then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA, reinstating harsh economic sanctions on Iran. Exactly a year later, the Iranian government announced that Tehran had started to scale back its JCPOA obligations.

Since April 2021, Vienna has been hosting talks to restore the deal, which had until recently shown little success. The US accused Tehran of pushing unrealistic demands, while Iran said it wouldn't agree to anything less than a reliable and lasting lifting of all the sanctions.

As for the Russian special operation, it began on 24 February and is going "as planned", according to President Vladimir Putin. The Russian Defence Ministry emphasised that the operation only aims to destroy Ukraine's military infrastructure with high-precision weapon strikes and that civilians are out of danger.

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