The United States has accused Iran of dragging the Middle East into a perilous new phase of instability, with a senior Trump administration official warning that Tehran’s continued nuclear defiance has created an “incredibly dangerous” situation.
“Iran has been in defiance of the JCPOA for years… They’ve been enriching at a minimum of 60 percent since, I think, April 2021,” said Morgan Ortagus, US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace. “We are in an incredibly dangerous place with them.”
Speaking to Al Arabiya News’ Hadley Gamble, Ortagus said US President Donald Trump remained open to renewed diplomacy, but only under strict conditions and without returning to what she called the “indirect talks that string us along.”
“That is not happening under this administration,” she said. “If we’re going to have talks, they need to be quick. They need to be serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons program.”
Her remarks come ahead of the expiry of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 in October, which will remove the last remaining constraints imposed by the now-dismantled Iran nuclear deal. “No one’s done anything about it,” Ortagus added. “They were in violation of basically every IAEA standard that you could be.”
‘We’re not going to be extorted’
While affirming that President Trump “has clearly said he wants a peaceful future for both countries,” Ortagus said the administration would not be lured into a repeat of what it sees as past diplomatic failures.
“We’re not going to be extorted the way the Biden administration was,” she said. “President Trump loves to get a deal… but the deal has to not be where we’re getting played.”
Her comments are likely to be closely watched in Tehran and among European capitals still formally committed to preserving elements of the 2015 nuclear agreement. Iran’s uranium stockpile continues to grow however, according to the US and weapons-grade enrichment appears now within reach.
