US says awaits constructive response from Iran on nuclear deal

WASHINGTON: The United States awaits a constructive response from Iran on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal that drops “extraneous” issues, the US State Department said on Tuesday in a possible reference to Tehran’s demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be dropped from a US terrorism list.

Iran on Thursday dealt a near-fatal blow to chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as it began removing essentially all the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring equipment installed under the deal, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said.

Iran had warned of retaliation if the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution drafted by the United States, France, Britain and Germany criticising Tehran for its continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

Read more: Iran removes two IAEA surveillance cameras from nuclear facility

The resolution was passed by a crushing majority late on Wednesday.

Iran told the agency overnight it planned to remove equipment including 27 IAEA cameras as of Thursday, which is “basically all” the extra monitoring equipment installed under the 2015 deal going beyond Iran’s core obligations to the agency, Grossi told a news conference.