The Obama administration is asking Congress to hold fire on enacting new sanctions against Iran, to give negotiators flexibility in current nuclear talks.

Even as US officials argue that tough sanctions are what brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place, the White House and State Department said the administration wanted politicians to wait on new sanctions to give the negotiations time to get traction.

Some politicians have argued that now is not the time to ease pressure and that pursuing new sanctions will give the US additional leverage in the talks.

Tough sanctions are what brought Iran to the negotiating table

But State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it was the consensus of the administration’s national security teams that a pause “would be helpful in terms of providing some flexibility while we see if these negotiations will move forward”.

She said the position was delivered to politicians and congressional aides at a White House meeting on Thursday.

“We have conveyed that any congressional action should be aligned with our negotiating strategy as we move forward. So while we understand that Congress may consider new sanctions, we think this is a time for a pause, as we asked for in the past, to see if negotiations can gain traction,” Ms Psaki said.

She noted that additional sanctions could always be imposed later if the Iranians failed to meet their obligations.