Iran facing increased isolation: Biden

BRUSSELS: Iran faces a “stark choice,” to scrap its nuclear programme or face “further consequences” and increased isolation, US Vice President Joe Biden told EU lawmakers on Thursday.

“Iran’s nuclear programme violates its obligation and... the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and risks sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” said Biden, at the start of a European tour. Wouldn’t it be “ironic,” the Democratic vice-president asked, if the world saw the Iron Curtain fall with the end of the Soviet Union only for a new arms race to emerge “in some of the most unstable parts of the world.”

“That would be an irony that our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren would not forgive us, in my view, to allow to come to pass,” he said.