WASHINGTON, May 25 (KUNA) -- US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said Wednesday that "prospects" for returning to a nuclear deal with Iran are "tenuous, at best." "We do not have a deal and prospects for reaching one are tenuous at best," Malley told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
He added "are we better off reviving the nuclear deal and, in parallel, using all other tools at our disposal, diplomatic, economic and otherwise, to address Iran's destabilizing policies, or are we better off getting rid of the deal and banking on a policy of pressure alone to get Iran to accept more onerous nuclear constraints and curb its aggressive policies." He continued "we have gone through several years of a real-life experiment in the very policy approach critics of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) advocated." "Many of us strongly disagreed with this policy at the time, but of course we could not prove that it would fail. Then we predicted, now we know," he stressed.
He affirmed "the simple fact is this - as a means of constraining Iran's nuclear program, the JCPOA was working. Leaving it has not." "We harbor no illusion," he said. "Nuclear deal or no nuclear deal, this Iranian government will remain a threat." (end) si.mb