Blinken warns Iran is weeks away from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran is a week or two away from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon. He maintained that he is not optimistic about political change in that country despite the election of a new president.

"Instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, it is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that," Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum in remarks reported by The Times Of Israel on Friday. 

Similarly, the head of U.S. diplomacy explained that they have not yet produced the weapon itself, which would take much longer. In addition, he defended Joe Biden's policy on the Iranian authorities.

"When this administration came in, we tried to pursue again, nuclear diplomacy with Iran, because if you could at least take one problem off the board, which is Iran potentially with a nuclear weapon, that’s inherently a good thing," Blinken said.

In addition, Blinken noted that the Democratic administration prefers diplomacy to deal with the situation even though it emphasized that it will not allow Iran to produce the nuclear weapon.

"What we need to see, if Iran is serious about engaging, is actually pulling back on the work that it’s been doing on his program. ... Second, we have been maximizing pressure on Iran across the board. We’ve imposed more than 600 sanctions on Iranian persons and entities. We haven’t lifted a single sanction," Blinken maintained.