According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the U.S. will probably not be able to “fix the flaws” that President Donald Trump outlined in the Iranian nuclear accord before the White House deadline comes. Tillerson’s remarks came on Monday just before the beginning of talks on the issue with three European countries.
The Hill reports that after President Trump waived sanctions against Iran earlier this month — a requirement under the Obama-era 2015 nuclear deal — he emphasized that he would not sign off on another wave of U.S. sanctions relief in May unless Europe agrees to help restrict Iranian missile testing and development as well as conduct inspections.
“The U.S. is under a bit of a timetable to deliver on what the President is looking for, but we don’t — we can’t set timetables for others,” Tillerson said to reporters accompanying him during his flight from London to Paris.
Meanwhile, the secretary said that he will address the issue while being a host of an official dinner which representatives from Germany, France and Italy will attend. These three countries previously had informal talks with Washington about the Iranian accord, as well as the European Union.
“So this is just a continuation of the exchange of views on how we can address these flaws in the nuclear agreement, what kind of mechanisms could we use, but also how can we cooperate more on countering Iran’s activities that are not related to the nuclear program,” Tillerson said, emphasizing the U.S. concerns about Iran’s “arms exports to Yemen and elsewhere.”
“So we’re formalizing — I think maybe what we’re doing is we’re formalizing these groups to put a little bit more of structure around our working together to see what we can do together,” Tillerson concluded.
Be the first to comment