Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has sounded a conciliatory note in suggesting Iran is not trying to exert pressure on the United States to meet its obligations under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. Speaking in Tehran on Thursday [February 18], Rouhani called on the Biden administration to correct the “mistake made by the previous US administration as soon as possible.”

While Rouhani and United States President Joe Biden have expressed a wish to revive the deal, known as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 before imposing stringent sanctions, both sides have demanded the other take the first steps.

While arguing the JCPOA stands as an international agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council, Iran has also recently stepped-up violations of JCPOA limits on its nuclear program, going back to 2019, with moves seen by analysts as pushing Washington to act first in returning to the JCPOA.

Rouhani denied that such actions, most recently plans to curb access of United Nations nuclear inspectors, were aimed at cajoling the US: “This is wrong. We are not asking the United States to do something against the law. What we want is respect for international regulations and commitments… Don’t be shy. It is good to surrender to the rule of law. What is bad is submitting to the use of force…We hope the Americans would return to the rule of law so that we can continue our international trade and transactions.”

The remaining JCPOA signatories – Russia, China, Britain, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Iran – in December issued a statement calling on both Washington and Iran to revive the agreement. In a possible sign of frustration at lack of progress a month into the Biden administration, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Rouhani by telephone on Wednesday.

Rouhani had stressed earlier on Wednesday that Iran’s decision to reduce UN inspectors’ access, due to be implemented February 23 after legislation passed by parliament, would not stop co-operation with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi is due in Tehran on Saturday to agree ways to continue what the agency called “essential verification activities.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to join the three European foreign ministers by videolink Thursday to discuss Iran. In Washington on Wednesday State Department Spokesman Ned Price told a news conference that the JCPOA was the “floor and not the ceiling,” with the US keen to build on the deal. Price said the Biden administration wanted “follow-on arrangements to address other areas of concern…that our allies and partners share, including Iran’s ballistic missile program.”

Speaking to Iran International TV, Tahmineh Dehbozorgi, a journalist and political analyst in the US suggested that any wider agreement involving Iran would require Congressional approval and could not just be agreed by the president. When Obama was in office, Republicans railed against his use of executive orders, only to support Trump is issuing far more: but despite having a Democrat majority in both houses, Biden begun his presidency with a faster rate of executive orders than either predecessor.

While Dehbozorgi suggested Congress would not accept a revived JCPOA, Biden’s officials have stressed their priority is consulting international allies. Press secretary Jen Psaki has said on several occasions that electoral victory has given Biden a mandate for his actions.

After four years of Trump, many are startled by multilateral diplomacy. Ali Vaez, the director of Iran Project and a senior adviser at the Crisis Group in Washington in a February 17 tweet summarized the current situation as: “The Iranians are talking to the Germans. IAEA is talking to the Iranians. The Americans are talking to the Europeans. The regional allies are talking to the Americans. The Iranians are talking to some of the Gulf states. The Swiss are talking to everyone...”