Iranian journalist to Biden: 'Do not bury human rights underneath your deal’
Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad calls out the West for continuing to cooperate with Iran and slams the Biden administration over Iran deal following Salman Rushdie attack.
Iranian officials will demand the U.S. include a penalty should it ever withdraw from the nuclear deal again, in order to prevent a repeat of former President Trump’s move that heavily crippled the country’s economy.
"Here you have Iran‘s regime calling the shots once again," Foreign Desk Editor-in-Chief Lisa Daftari told Fox News Digital. "They’re asking for everything and the kitchen sink as part of the latest round of nuclear talks, and they want to make sure that the U.S. does not pull out once they sign onto a deal shaped and demanded by the mullahs."
"It goes to show how effective Trump’s pressure campaign was, when the mullahs are fearful of a similar situation when a new president comes into office," she added. "They know their time is limited under a Biden administration that will go to great lengths to get a deal."
The U.S. and Iran have remained locked in tight negotiations for the past 16 months to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal. Iran’s foreign minister on Monday indicated that multiple issues require additional attention before the two nations can reach a final agreement – including the addition of a failsafe penalty payment should the U.S. withdraw from the agreement again.
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The U.S. has labeled Iran’s demands as "extraneous" and insists that everything that can be negotiated already has been, Reuters reported.
A group of anti-Iran demonstrators gather during a meeting on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria on April 15, 2021. (Askin Kiyagan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
"The only way to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is for Iran to drop further unacceptable demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA," U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. "We have long called these demands extraneous."
Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and replaced the deal with severe sanctions on the energy, shipping and financial sectors that pushed Iran’s economy into recession in 2019, according to the BBC.
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President Biden wanted to resurrect the deal in an effort to stop Iran’s meteoric pursuit of a nuclear weapon – something that U.S. officials have started to worry is only a matter of months or even weeks away.
But Iran has not shown any great willingness to reinstate the deal, which would only slow down progress toward nuclear capabilities rather than outright stop it.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gives his official seal of approval to newly elected President Ebrahim Raisi in an endorsement ceremony in Tehran, Iran, on Aug. 5, 2021. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP)
Tehran has stated its reservations over a U.S. commitment to the deal following Trump's exit from the previous one, and will seek to add a penalty payment, while the U.S. has demanded that Iran stop its assassination campaign against former Trump officials, including Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and even Trump himself, the Foreign Desk website reported.
Other demands Iran has made to proceed with the deal include the U.S. removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
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The IRGC has allegedly offered bounties for the heads of the former Trump officials, including a $1 million bounty for Pompeo.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, right, attends a press conference with Josep Borell, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, in Tehran on June 25, 2022. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The bounties and assassinations prompted some critics to demand the U.S. walk from the deal entirely after Salman Rushdie survived a nearly fatal attack last week. A man rushed the stage in Chautauqua, New York, where the Indian-born author prepared to give a lecture, and stabbed him several times, including in the neck.
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Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini placed a fatwa on Rushdie over the publication of his book "The Satanic Verses," with a semi-official Iranian religious organization later putting a bounty on Rushdie’s head for $3.3 million.