Oil Spikes After Local Media Reports ‘No Iran Nuclear Deal’

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has announced that it has received the White House response to its earlier in the week submission of a finalized nuclear deal text. Al-Arabiya and other regional outlets are reporting that the US has rejected the additional conditions put in place by Iran, meaning there’s no deal.

“It has also said Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium beyond purity level of 4%, Al-Arabiya reports,” according to early unconfirmed reports. “The US has rejected all the additional conditions requested by Iran, and urged Iran to lift any restrictions on international inspections,” regional source Iran International writes. Oil prices are spiking on the breaking news…

The US State Department earlier announced that “Our review of Iran’s comments on the EU’s proposed final text has now concluded. We have responded to the EU today. We have conveyed our feedback privately to the EU. But we’re not going to detail that feedback today.”

Tehran has further announced it is reviewing the US response and plans to issue formal notification to the European Union once the review is complete. 

As we predicted, it does not appear any final deal is on the horizon this week (or likely ever), given the trajectory of things, including – it should be mentioned – rare US airstrikes on “Iranian-backed” groups in Syria on Tuesday.

As it stands, the longer the can gets kicked down the road, and more and more conditions are made firm and out in the open – most especially the disagreement over international inspections, which Iran has demanded be dropped – the more likely there will continue to be no deal.

#BREAKING The Europeans are in contact with the parties to the Iran nuclear agreement to hold a new round of talks after receiving the US response, Al-Arabiya reports.

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) August 24, 2022

And of course, some US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia are hoping talks will ultimately fail and be cut off completely. As The Wall Street Journal emphasized Wednesday:

As Washington and Tehran edge closer to restoring the nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday slammed the agreement being negotiated, saying it wouldn’t stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon and would hand Tehran a significant financial boon.

A new nuclear deal between world powers and #Iran would allow other nations to avoid sanctions and give Teheran $100 billion a year to destabilise the Middle East, #Israel‘s Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Wednesday.https://t.co/ok9vZGK4we

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) August 24, 2022

developing…