People’s Participation in Election Led to Negotiation Success

12 August 2015 | 16:43 Code : 1950942 Review General category
Excerpts of Foreign Minister Zarif’s speech at the JCPOA Review Conference
People’s Participation in Election Led to Negotiation Success

 -People’s participation in the 2013 presidential election is the basis of the success of the nuclear negotiations because the other side became disappointed about imposing its decisions on the people of Iran.

-The final draft of the JCPOA is a balanced text. We have not imposed all our demands on the other party and the other side did not achieve all its objectives. The text is also balanced in the timing of its implementation.

-The main objective of sanctions is to exert pressure on the people in order to separate them from the government.

-All sanctions that have been imposed by the UN Security Council against countries and governments have led to either regime change or to war. The Iranian people’s 73% participation in the 2013 election showed that sanctions were not effective. Despite the sanctions, people came to the ballot boxes and showed that they interact with their government via these boxes.

-People’s participation disappointed the other side about reaching its objectives through imposing sanctions.

-The other side had securitized Iran’s nuclear program through the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. On the other hand, we had reached a scientific and technological level which could not be threatened by the pressures imposed by the other party.

-In the final text, neither side has imposed all its demands on the other side because that would not be an agreement but rather a document of submission.

-After a ten-year period, Iran’s dossier in the UN Security Council will be closed. In the new resolution, limitations for a short period of time are used instead of prohibition with regard to military and missile activities.

-Following the Vienna Agreement, the approach of the international community regarding Iran and its nuclear program has fundamentally changed.

-For more than 35 years, I have studied and taught in universities the Security Council and sanctions. I must say that Resolution 1929 was one of the worst resolutions of the history of the Security Council. On the other hand, it can perhaps be said that Resolution 2231 is one of the strangest resolutions of the Security Council, and this is even stated by the other parties.

-What has been achieved is very big and it would be treason to tell people that they have failed.

-We should be able to establish cultural, political and economic relations with other countries and even have cooperation in the fight against terrorism.