A new Iran nuclear deal is looking increasingly unlikely after U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Iran had taken “a step backward” with its latest comments on the final proposal brokered and compiled by the EU. “What we’ve seen over the last week or so in Iran’s response to the proposal put forward by the European Union is clearly a step backward and makes prospects for an agreement in the near-term, I would say, unlikely,” Blinken told media as cited by CNN. “They continue to try to introduce extraneous issues to the negotiation that make an agreement less likely,” Washington’s top diplomat also said. “But certainly what we’ve seen in the last week is a step backward away from the likelihood of any kind of near-term agreement.” Iran and the United States are indirectly negotiating – via the mediation of the European Union – a return to the […]