U.S. special representative for Iran Rob Malley said on Tuesday that the United States is “alarmed” at Iran’s progress toward nuclear power.

In an interview with NPR Radio, Malley said that Iran “is much closer to having fissure material for a bomb. To our knowledge, they have not resumed their weaponization program, which is what they would need to develop the bomb. But we are of course alarmed, as are our partners, at the progress they’ve made in the enrichment field.”

Malley added that Iran has enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb “within weeks.”

“It would be something we would know, we would see, and to which we would react quite forcefully as you could imagine,” Malley said.

Malley further said that the Iran-US talks in Qatar last week were “more than a little bit of a wasted occasion,” explaining that Iran added demands that had “nothing to do with the nuclear deal, things that they’ve wanted in the past.”

“The discussion that really needs to take place right now is not so much between us and Iran, although we’re prepared to have that. It’s between Iran and itself. They need to come to a conclusion about whether they are now prepared to come back into compliance with the deal. They’re going to have to decide sooner or later, because at some point, the deal will be a thing of the past.”

The situation must be pretty dire if Malley, who previously was committed to signing a nuclear deal with Iran at all costs, is losing hope. Malley has been willing to overlook almost anything to sign a deal with Iran to the point that several members of the US negotiation team quit due to his soft stance.

Former U.S. State Department official Gabriel Noronha said in March that he doesn’t trust Malley and the deal is “very dangerous” for both U.S. and regional security.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)