Speaking at Brookings Institution forum on the Middle East, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday there was a “less than even shot” of a nuclear deal with Iran.
“We will not let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon — period,” he said. “End of discussion. Not on our watch.”
Biden who opposes talk of more sanctions against the Iranian regime said the sanctions imposed by the United States and allies were working by slowing Iran’s economy, as well as its nuclear program.
“It’s frozen the program, it’s given us a shot for a peaceful solution,” he said. “I tell you, I think it’s a less than even shot but it’s a shot, nonetheless.”
Meanwhile the Iranian regime denied reports that Tehran had made significant concessions in exchange for extending talks on its nuclear program.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was quoted by the state-run Fars News Agency: “The conditions for extending the nuclear negotiations to July 1, 2015 were like the conditions reining the extension of the previous deadlines and no new undertaking has been added to it.”
Kamalvandi was responding to an AP report that the Iranian regime has promised to allow snap inspections of its facilities and to neutralize much of its remaining uranium stockpile.
Those terms are included in a document that US officials say represents the terms for a seven-month extension in nuclear negotiations between world powers and the Iranian regime, agreed to when the last deadline of November 24 passed without an accord..
State-run media also reported that a source close to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team rejected claims that that the regime had put a freeze on testing new centrifuges.
“This is not true at all and the trend of R&D on enrichment is moving along its natural track at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” said the source.
