USA: “Our top priority right now is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons”

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Says Preventing Iran From Obtaining Nuclear Weapon “Top Priority” For US

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon remained a “top priority” for the United States, stressing that diplomacy “is the best way to achieve it”.

Sullivan weighed the issue in his appearances on Sunday morning news broadcasts, a day after the election of Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was previously the head of the country’s ultra-conservative judiciary.

“Well I think what we need to do in America is keep an eye on the ball,” Sullivan said when asked about Iran on “This Week”. ‘ABC News. “And that’s it … our top priority right now is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve this, rather than military conflict. And so we will negotiate clearly and firmly with the Iranians to see if we can come up with a result that will make their nuclear program profitable.“

Sullivan added that the United States believes the decision to reactivate the 2015 nuclear deal lay not with Raisi, but with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 82. “He was the same person before these elections as after them, so ultimately it’s up to him to decide,” Sullivan said.

Raisi’s victory should not derail the ongoing negotiations in Vienna between Tehran and the world powers over a possible reactivation of the nuclear deal. Khamenei has authorized Iran to reopen the dialogue and appears willing to maintain it in a bid to lift international sanctions against Iran. But the long-term effect on Iran’s relations with Europe and the United States was much less clear.

On the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program, Sullivan said “time will tell” whether another round of multilateral negotiations is possible. “We are awaiting a clear signal from Pyongyang indicating whether they are willing to come to the table to start working in this direction.He said. Sullivan added that the recent comments by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are “an interesting sign”, but that the administration is still awaiting “more direct communication with us on a possible way forward.”

According to Korea’s Central News Agency, at a ruling party meeting last week, Kim “stressed the need to prepare for both dialogue and confrontation” with the United States, “in especially to prepare fully for the confrontation in order to protect the dignity of our state, ”the Associated Press reported.

Sullivan also gave an assessment of President Joe Biden’s first overseas trip on Sunday, explaining how the administration views relations with Russia and aid to Ukraine.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union”, Sullivan said the United States was continuing to prepare another package of sanctions against Russian targets for the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, responding to criticism from the Senate that the Blanca House has passed the deadline to impose sanctions. “It will come as soon as we develop the packages to make sure that we are meeting the right targets, and when we do, we will impose more sanctions on chemical weapons.”Sullivan said.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently criticized the Biden administration for failing to meet the deadline set by Congress to impose sanctions in early June, and said Russian President Vladimir Putin no ‘had “shown no remorse” for the poisoning. Sullivan noted that the United States has already issued a series of poisoning sanctions in concert with its European allies.

Following Biden’s meeting with Putin in Geneva last week, Sullivan said the United States will see “through deeds, not through words or commitments or body language, whether we are indeed on a best way with US-Russian policy and US-Russian relationship. “in the next six to twelve months.

Biden “isn’t taking anything for granted at this meeting,” Sullivan said.

When asked on “Fox News Sunday” to respond to Republican criticism of Biden’s meeting with Putin, Sullivan argued that there was no comparison between how Biden portrayed America on the world stage and the way Donald Trump did it at the Helsinki summit in 2018.

Sullivan was also asked to explain why the United States had frozen aid to Ukraine, another recent criticism of the Conservatives. Sullivan noted that “there has been some confusion in the reporting,” particularly with what has already been allocated.

“Privately in the room, President Biden informed President Putin that there would be costs and consequences if the harmful activities against America continued,” Sullivan told host Chris Wallace. “In public, at his press conference, he not only spoke about it quite directly, without mince words, but he also spoke about American values, which the last president never spoke about.”

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