Good Progress in Amending US Law on JCPOA

A spokesperson for the US Department of State said "pretty good" progress has been made on bipartisan congressional legislation to address what President Donald Trump sees as shortcomings in the 2015 nuclear deal.

Trump has delivered an ultimatum to congress and America's European allies to fix the "terrible flaws" in the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or he will pull the US out in a few months' time.

"As you know, the president extended the waivers on some of the sanctions for another 120 days. That's to provide time for the administration in conjunction with members of congress to come up with legislative language, to work harder on legislation that would help try to pull Iran into better compliance and look to being tougher on Iran. So that is something that the administration decided," Heather Nauert said in a daily presser on Tuesday.

She was explaining Trump's Friday statement in which he extended waivers of key economic sanctions on Iran that the US agreed to suspend under the nuclear pact in return for temporary restrictions on Tehran's nuclear activity.

"Some of those conversation, from what I have been told, between congress and the administration, they're making some pretty good progress on the legislation and some of the language on that," Nauert added, according to a transcript of her remarks carried by the website of the US State Department.

Republican Senator Bob Corker said earlier "significant progress" had been made on the legislation.

Trump would reportedly also work with Europeans on a follow-on deal to enshrine triggers that the Iranian government could not exceed related to its ballistic missiles program.

Curbing that program is among the conditions Trump has set for keeping the US in the deal.

His other conditions include immediate access to all Iranian sites by the UN nuclear agency's inspectors and the indefinite extension of limits on Iran's uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities by removing the expiration dates set under "sunset clauses" in the nuclear deal.  

Officials in Tehran have vehemently rejected those demands.