Washington (AP) -Biden administration officials argue that the election of hardliners as president of Iran will not affect the prospect of resurrecting the stagnant 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. However, there are already signs that their goal of closing a deal has become even more stringent.

The optimistic view that the deal was imminent diminished without any concrete sign of major progress, as the latest negotiations ended on Sunday. And on Monday, in his first public comment since the vote, the next Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, rejected Biden’s key goal of expanding nuclear trade if negotiators could save the old.

At the same time, Raishi himself is already subject to US human rights penalties, which could raise Iran’s demand for easing sanctions in return for Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

“I’m not envious of the Biden team,” said Karim Sajapur, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, who advised several US administrations in Iran. “I think the administration is now more urgent to revise the deal before Raishi and a new hardline team are launched.”

President Joe Biden and his team have made the United States return to trading as one of its foreign policy priorities. The deal was one of the outcomes of President Barack Obama’s signature, with an aide currently serving in the Biden administration helping the negotiations and Donald Trump refusing to dismantle as president.

Despite President Biden’s imminent president, Biden administration officials claim that the prospect of reaching an agreement remains unchanged. They argue that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who approved the 2015 Agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will make the final decision regardless of who the president is. There is.

“The president’s view and ours are that the deciding leader is the supreme leader,” said White House spokesman Jen Psaki. “That was the pre-election case. That’s right today. Probably moving forward.”

“Iran will have the same pre-election Supreme Leader in August, as it did when the JCPOA was first completed in 2015,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

However, expectations for significant progress have diminished as speculation about the impact of voting on indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States in Vienna preceded last week’s Iranian elections. Diplomats and others familiar with the negotiations believed that the final round, the sixth round, could at least produce concrete results, if not a complete deal.

Currently, that round is over and the seventh round is not yet scheduled. Iran’s conservative Attorney General, Raisi, has shown that in exchange for lifting all US sanctions, he has absolutely refused more than Iran’s minimum compliance with the 2015 agreement.

In his public comment on Monday, Laisi asks Iran to agree on subsequent discussions on expanding its initial nuclear trade to include ballistic missile programs and support for regional groups that the United States designates terrorist organizations. Ignored the US call.

“It’s indisputable,” Raishi said.

Iranian experts agree that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for Biden to force Iran to cross the nuclear deal.

“I’m very skeptical that if we lift sanctions and bring them back, they’ll feel an incentive to come back and negotiate more concessions,” Sadjapour said. “And if we force them to return to the table with sanctions, they will claim that we have abolished the end of the nuclear deal. Again.”

Critics of nuclear trade argue that by showing a desire to refuse Trump’s refusal to trade nuclear trade, the government is already giving too little in exchange for too much. And even if Iran agrees to some additional negotiations, the pledge will be meaningless, they say.

“It was pretty clear that Iranians would never negotiate in good faith beyond the JCPOA,” said Rich Goldberg, an official of the Trump administration’s National Security Council, who supported Iran’s hard line.

“But now, even if the administration receives some face-saving words from the Iranians about future talks, Raishi says they are no longer interested. The jig is up,” he said. Said. “You can’t go back to the skeptical parliament and trade with your allies or enemies, and you can’t say that the promise means what it means, even though Raishi hasn’t said so already.”

But while it’s as good as the nuclear deal, government officials categorically argue that it’s inadequate and needs to be improved.

“We see a return to compliance as needed, but not enough, but we also see a return to compliance as it allows us to tackle other issues diplomatically,” said Price. He added that the point was revealed to the Iranians. It’s not an uncertain word. “

To make matters worse, Raisi will be part of his time as Iran’s internationally criticized head of judiciary, even before taking office, becoming the first Iranian president to be licensed by the U.S. government-that. Situations that can complicate state visits and speeches at international forums such as the United Nations.

Both Saki and Price said the United States would continue to hold Laisi responsible for human rights abuses granted by the Trump administration.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. This included resurrecting all sanctions that were relaxed under the agreement and adding a number of new sanctions.