WASHINGTON (JTA) — An Iran nuclear deal will not include substantial sanctions relief at the front end, Vice President Joe Biden said.
“If at the front end they expect there to be total sanction relief or significant sanction relief, there will be no deal,” Biden said in an address in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday to a Democratic political action committee, Politico reported. “This will be, ‘You have to earn it.’”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that there will be no deal between Iran and the major powers unless there is immediate total sanctions relief.
Iran and the major powers earlier this month announced the outline of a deal that would swap sanctions relief for strictures aimed at keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
President Barack Obama on Friday said that the sides would have to come up with “creative” formulas that would make a deal acceptable to their publics.
