President Joe Biden used his first address before a global audience Friday to say that the West should address Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

 

 

Speaking to the annual Munich Security Conference virtually, Biden said the US and its allies must “address Iran's destabilizing activities across the Middle East, and we're going to work in close cooperation with our European and other partners as we proceed.”

 

 

 

But he said that the US stands ready to rejoin talks about reentering the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration.

 

 

Allies were listening closely to what Biden had to say about a looming crisis with Iran.

 

 

Tehran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency this week that it would suspend voluntary implementation next week of a provision in the deal that allowed UN nuclear monitors to conduct inspections of undeclared sites in Iran at short notice unless the US rolled back sanctions by Feb. 23.

 

 

"We must now make sure that a problem doesn’t arise of who takes the first step,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters. “If everyone is convinced that we should give this agreement a chance again, then ways should be found to get this agreement moving again.”