Report: Biden to Offer Iran Partial Sanctions Relief for Partial Nuclear Stop

Iranian Zarif in Pakistan AP PhotoAnjum Naveed
AP Photo/Anjum Naveed

President Joe Biden is set to offer Iran partial sanctions relief in exchange for a partial stop to its nuclear activities, according to a report Monday in Politico.

Biden campaigned on returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to emerge as a nuclear power after roughly a decade, and was adopted by President Barack Obama in defiance of Congress. The deal also gave Iran sanctions relief, up to $150 billion in access to assets, and billions of dollars in cash in a side deal for captives.

Israel revealed in 2018, citing an intelligence trove seized from Iran, that the regime had continued its nuclear weapons program despite the deal. Iran also continued funding terror throughout the region, and building missile technology.

Politico reported:

Biden administration officials, mindful of the increasingly unfavorable calendar, plan to put forth a new proposal to jump-start the talks as soon as this week, two people familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

The proposal asks Iran to halt some of its nuclear activities, such as work on advanced centrifuges and the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, in exchange for some relief from U.S. economic sanctions, said one of the people, who stressed that the details are still being worked out.

Earlier this year, the U.S. suggested that it would give Iran access to a small amount of its billions of dollars in frozen assets in exchange for Iran stopping its 20 percent enrichment of uranium, one of the people confirmed.

Tehran balked at what it saw as an unequal offer. In response, it suggested that it would halt uranium enrichment for a month in exchange for the U.S. lifting all its sanctions. The American side saw that as more of a cheeky rejoinder than a serious counter-proposal, the person said.

As Breitbart News has reported, Biden has already taken several steps toward appeasing Iran, including withdrawing U.S. support for the Saudi war against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, backing off trade and weapons deals with the United Arab Emirates, and appointing the same diplomats who negotiated the Iran deal to key administration diplomatic posts.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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