Iran’s Supreme Leader has ultimate decision on nuclear deal, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan says

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said that Iran’s Supreme Leader has the ultimate decision on restoring the nuclear deal between the two countries.

When asked if he shared the optimism of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that a deal could be reached before the newly elected President Ebrahim Raisi takes office, Mr Sullivan told ABC News: “There’s still a fair distance to travel on some of the key issues, including on sanctions and on nuclear commitments that Iran has to make. But the arrow has been pointed in the right direction in terms of the work that’s being done in Vienna.”

Talks between Iran and global powers took place in the Austrian capital on Sunday in an effort to re-establish the 2015 agreement after it was abandoned by the Trump administration.

Mr Sullivan said “we will see” if the Iranian negotiators are “prepared to make the hard choices that they have to make” in order for the deal “to be reinstated”.

When he was asked about whether the election of Mr Raisi increases the chances of a deal being struck, Mr Sullivan said: “The ultimate decision for whether or not to go back into the deal lies with Iran’s supreme leader.”

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “was the same person before this election as he is after the elections,” Mr Sullivan added.

Mr Sullivan said it was the Supreme Leader’s “decision as to whether he wants to go down the path of diplomacy here, or face mounting pressure, not just from the United States, but from the rest of the international community”.

His comments come as North Korean state-controlled media reported on Friday that the country’s leader Kim Jong-Un ordered his government to prepare for “both dialogue and confrontation” with the United States, indicating that he might be open for new nuclear talks.

“Time will tell,” Mr Sullivan told ABC News concerning the possibility of the US reengaging with North Korea.

“What President Biden has communicated is that the United States is prepared to engage in principled negotiations with North Korea to deal with the challenge of North Korea’s nuclear programme towards the ultimate objective of the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.”

“We are awaiting a clearer signal from Pyongyang as to whether they are prepared to sit down at the table to begin working in that direction,” he added.

Mr Sullivan said that the administration regarded Kim Jong-Un’s recent comments as “an interesting signal” but added that the White House “will wait to see whether they are followed up with any kind of direct communication to us about a potential path forward”.

When asked what the administration was waiting for, Mr Sullivan said that a “clear signal they could send is to say ‘yes, let’s do it, let’s sit down and begin negotiations’. We think that, just as in the case of the Iranian nuclear issue, with the North Korea nuclear issue there is no substitute for diplomacy to begin to make progress towards that ultimate objective – the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.