The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden said it would be willing to meet with Iran to discuss a "diplomatic way forward” in efforts to return to the nuclear deal that President Donald Trump quit in 2018, a first step toward easing tensions that rose steadily over the past four years.
The offer is a politically risky effort by Biden’s administration to move past the standoff after a slew of U.S. sanctions cratered Iran’s economy and infuriated other world leaders, who argued that the 2015 accord and the inspections regime it created had reined in Tehran’s nuclear program.
"The United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Thursday. The P5+1 refers to the participants in the nuclear deal with Iran: China, Russia, France, the U.K., the U.S and Germany.