US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed the Biden administration’s plans to move forward with nuclear negotiations with Iran, despite Republican calls to scrap the talks over Tehran’s alleged support of the Gaza-based Hamas movement.
A group of 43 Republican Senators sent a letter to Blinken on Wednesday, asking the secretary of state to call off the multilateral nuclear talks in Vienna over Tehran’s alleged involvement with Hamas, which governs the Israel-blockaded Gaza Strip.
Hamas began firing crudely made rockets into Israeli territory earlier this week in response to Israel’s attacks on al-Aqsa Mosque worshippers and its crackdown on protests in occupied East Jerusalem. While Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system has intercepted the vast majority of the rockets, Israel has responded with air strikes that have killed more than 100 people in the coastal enclave, including 27 children and 11 women.
Blinken, during a joint press conference with his Australian counterpart on Thursday, said he could not confirm that Iran had any involvement in Hamas’ most recent actions. But he said that if Tehran did have a hand in supporting the movement then that would only further highlight the importance of the negotiations.
“I don’t have anything to offer on whether there is Iranian involvement or not in what’s taking place [in Israel]. But I would only say that when it comes to any of the malign activities that Iran may or may not be engaged in – whether it is support for terrorism, whether its efforts to destabilise other countries, whether it is other actions that we find objectionable – that only underscores the importance of doing everything we can to make sure that Iran never requires a nuclear weapon,” Blinken said.
“An Iran with a nuclear weapon or with the capacity to have one in a very short order is an Iran likely to act with even greater impunity when it comes to these other other actions. So, the talks go on in Vienna in an effort to see if we can return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA,” he said using an acronym for the Obama-era nuclear deal.