Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that “Iran’s response to the proposal put forward by the European Union [to revive the JCPOA] is clearly a step backward and makes prospects for an agreement in the near term, I would say, unlikely… Iran seems either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to reach an agreement and they continue to try to introduce extraneous issues to the negotiation”. The following day, a U.S. diplomatic spokesperson announced that “we have provided feedback to the latest Iranian response”, adding: “The most recent Iranian response did not, of course, put us in a position to close the deal… Some gaps have closed in recent weeks, but others clearly remain”. He further remarked that “as we continue to believe that it’s not yet too late to conclude a deal, we also have not stopped in our contingency planning should concluding a deal prove impossible”.