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TEHRAN – Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran will not renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal it signed with six world powers and the European Union.
Washington is not in a position to set the conditions to implement its own commitments under the nuclear deal, Zarif said Thursday, addressing the sixth edition of the 2020 Rome Mediterranean Dialogues.
Iran signed the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany, and the European Union on July 14, 2015.
However, US President Donald Trump left the JCPOA on May 8, 2018. Trump replaced the pact with a “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran to pressure Iran to negotiate a new agreement.
With Trump’s defeat in the November 3 presidential election, hopes were raised about a possible revival of the JCPOA under President-elect Joe Biden.
The Iranian Foreign Minister says the West can talk about other issues only if they stop “their evil behavior in the region” and their “evil support” for Israel’s terrorist regime, otherwise “they have to shut up.” Zarif stated that Iran’s position is that the agreement is not open to renegotiation and that the United States must respect the agreement and the UN resolution that supports it.
He said that with its attack on the JCPOA, the Trump administration acted as a “rogue regime.”
The United States has “obligations, responsibilities as a member of the UN, as a member of the Security Council. And there is a Resolution 2231 of the Security Council, which the United States must observe ”, commented the Iranian diplomatic chief, reported Press TV.
He said that if the incoming Biden administration asks Tehran to come in and renegotiate the JCPOA, it would be walking in the same “dishonest” steps as the Trump team.
Washington must stop violating international law, Zarif said.
According to Zarif, the United States and the three European countries of the agreement insisted on their continued violation of the JCPOA, Iran would have to act on a pending parliamentary measure that would restrict the access of the UN nuclear agency to the nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic.
On Iran’s circumstances during the coronavirus pandemic, Zarif said that Iran has been hit by a third wave of infections and that its medical staff have been putting up with too much for too long.
‘Iran suffers from coronavirus more than the rest of the world due to the economic war’
The reason the country has been overwhelmed by the virus to such an extent is that it is suffering more than the rest of the world, and that is an economic war, he said. “This goes beyond restrictions,” he added, referring to US sanctions.
Zarif also said the United States has been preventing Iran from gaining access to billions of dollars in its financial resources abroad to buy vaccines.
Iran’s Health Ministry and its Central Bank have been trying to take advantage of the money, but “we have not had much success,” he said, adding that if Washington chooses to refute this “they are simply lying.”
“And that, in every definition of the word, is a crime against humanity,” he lamented.
He also pointed to the crimes of Israeli regimes in the region and said that Israel has been able to maintain its aggressive and lethal actions thanks to western-based impunity.
Therefore, the Israeli regime has continued with the annexation of Palestinian territories and assassinated another Iranian nuclear scientist as of last week without conviction, without consequences, Zarif said.
“When they are ready to deal with their own problems of their own evil behavior in the region, their evil support for a terrorist regime, then they can start talking about other things,” he said.
However, “as long as they can’t hold out, they have to shut up,” he concluded.
On Friday at 2:30 p.m., the Iranian nuclear convoy Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was attacked on a road in the small town of Absard in Damavand county, about 40 kilometers northeast of the capital Tehran. The scientist lost his life during the attack while his bodyguards were seriously injured.
Iranian officials were quick to point the finger at Israel, which has carried out assassination operations against Iranian nuclear scientists for the past decade. Zarif said in a tweet on Friday that the attack was carried out with “serious indications of Israel’s role.”
MH / PA
