Under the Trump administration, relations between the US and Iran quicklydeteriorated and tensions reached new heights following the US’ exit fromthe 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), imposition of a slewof designations and sanctions on Iranian officials and entities, and thekilling of General Qasem Soleimani.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged newly sworn-in US President JoeBiden on Friday to “choose a better path” than his predecessor and returnthe Land of the Free to the 2015 nuclear deallink before the opportunitydisappears for the administration.

Zarif urged in an opinion piece published in Foreign Affairs magazine thatif the US were to rejoin the thoroughly negotiated agreement, “Iran willlikewise return to full implementation of our commitments under the nucleardeal link.” However, the officialwent on to warn that “if Washington instead insists on extractingconcessions, then this opportunity will be lost.”

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“Iran has significantly increased its nuclear capabilities since May 2019 -but it has done so in full conformity with paragraph 36 of the nuclearagreement, which allows Iran to ‘cease performing its commitments’ underthe deal should another signatory stop performing its own,” reads the op-ed.

Zarif further states it is essential that the Biden administration “musterthe genuine political will in Washington to demonstrate that the UnitedStates is ready to be a real partner in collective efforts.”

According to the official, required steps to salvage the US’ role as asignatory of the 2015 deal include “unconditionally removing” all sanctionsimposed by the Trump administration and those that were re-imposed whenformer US President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 afteralleging the terms were violated, and that the deal was fatally flawed.

Participants of the still active agreement include China, France, Germany,Russia, the UK and the European Union.