TEHRAN - Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded that the United States lift all economic sanctions before the Islamic republic will dial back its uranium enrichment operations, according to Washington Times.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif went further, giving the U.S. until Feb. 21 to rejoin the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

The conservative newspaper says with Iran seeking to re-engage on the nuclear issue, President Biden has a chance to avoid missteps that doomed the Obama-era agreement with Iran. 

Meanwhile, Biden has thus far rejected Iran’s demand, telling CBS News that the sanctions will stay in place until Iran returns to the limits of the original agreement.

Former President Donald Trump described the nuclear pact as an example of West Asia merry-go-round that spent decades endlessly circling peace but never achieving it. Trump’s administration claimed the deal allowed Iran to evade compliance inspections and, after 15 years, to produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, he withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and chose a new path that circumvented Iran, and he facilitated accords between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco.

Expectedly, Iran started its uranium enrichment to exceed the agreed limit of 3.67 percent. In January, Iran announced its intention to achieve 20 percent enrichment. 

Now, “diplomacy is back,” according to Biden, and he has appointed Robert Malley, a first-string negotiator of the Obama deal, to lead his rapprochement with Iran. Washington Times urges the U.S. policy makers to conclude the kind of any deal to weaken the original accord.

According to the newspaper, Biden must ignore Tehran’s deadline and refuse to sit down with the Iranians until they suspend their nuclear-enrichment program and allow international inspectors to freely roam anywhere and anytime to ensure compliance. 

At the end, the newspaper recommends Biden’s administration to send any deal to the U.S. Senate for ratification as a bona fide treaty would correct the Obama administration’s failure to fortify the original deal with congressional approval.

EE/PA