US says nuclear talks to continue, despite alleged Iran kidnapping plot
State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington is "ready to go" ahead with talks, after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the task of renegotiating the deal had been handed over to the next administration.
The United States will continue to negotiate a mutual return to the landmark Iranian nuclear accord, despite allegations of an Iranian-orchestrated plot to kidnap an American journalist, US officials said Wednesday.
According to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, four Iranian operatives have been charged over a conspiracy to kidnap Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based Iranian dissident and author who fled Iran in 2009. Prosecutors say the Iranian spy network had surveilled Alinejad and were planning to forcibly take her to Iran, “where the victim’s fate would have been uncertain at best.”
The four alleged operatives remain at large in Iran and a California-based woman suspected of supporting the operation was arrested and arraigned last week, the Department of Justice said. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called the allegations against them "baseless and ridiculous.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the Biden administration would continue participating in nuclear negotiations and "pursue the diplomatic path forward,” despite the alleged kidnapping plot.
