The State Department’s envoy tasked with reviving the 2015 nuclear deal met with Iran’s U.N. ambassador, an anti–Iranian regime news outlet claimed today.
The report, by Iran International, leans heavily on Foggy Bottom’s apparent refusal to deny that such a meeting actually took place:
US State Department has not denied information by Iran International that US envoy Robert Malley held meetings in New York with Tehran’s UN ambassador recently.
In response to questions, the State Department did confirm that messages are being delivered to the Islamic Republic of Iran, even though the nuclear deal, JCPOA, “is not on the agenda.”
In response to questions submitted by Iran International on January 17, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “We have the means to deliver specific and firm messages to Iran when it is in America’s interest to do so.”
Iran International had asked the DoS that according to information it obtained, US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Saeed Iravani, “at least three times in the last two months.”
The meetings would have come amid the continued Iranian protest movement sparked initially by the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf properly and Tehran’s continued transfer of weapons to Russia to support the Kremlin’s campaign in Ukraine.
Although President Biden told an attendee at an event in the lead-up to the midterm elections that the 2015 agreement was already dead in his eyes, and although top U.S. officials claim that resurrecting it is not their focus, the administration also has not conclusively cut off U.S. participation in the negotiations.
Now the department is declining to refute Iran International’s reporting that Malley met a senior Iranian diplomat three times in recent weeks. The revelation is likely to spark concern on Capitol Hill and demands by House Republicans that Malley testify before congressional committees.