The U.S. State Department said it was "too soon to tell" if any progress had been made in restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as talks continue with Tehran.
State Department press secretary Ned Price told reporters Tuesday that there "may have been some modest progress" during the course of the last round of talks that concluded a week before Christmas.
"But it is in some ways too soon to say how substantive that progress may have been," he continued. "At a minimum, any progress, we believe, is falling short of Iran’s accelerating nuclear steps and is far too slow."
"This can’t continue, or it will soon be too late to return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA," Fox News cited him as saying.
"The fundamental position as of today has not changed," Price said. "Iran has at best been dragging its feet in the talks while accelerating its nuclear escalations."
Price said the U.S. was now assessing terms laid out in December’s negotiations and said the U.S. still believes mutual compliance with the JCPOA can be "quickly" realized "if Iran is serious."
"But we have not yet seen sufficient urgency demonstrated by Iran," he said pointing to Iran’s "vague, unrealistic, unconstructive positions" laid out in previous talks.
The eighth round of indirect talks with Iran began Monday in Vienna, in an attempt to salvage the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reestablish mutual compliance with the nuclear deal.
