JCPOA ‘very much alive’, Zarif says

Speaking in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Zarif said, “The deal is very much alive. The [UN] Security Council showed the deal was alive. The Security Council showed the United States was isolated in the world.”

He was referring to a recent showdown between Iran and the U.S. in the Security Council, where U.S. sought to create a consensus against Iran to reimpose all UN sanctions on it.

“The Trump administration used power politics, used bullying in order to destroy the deal. Now the next administration wants to use bullying to come back to the deal? So bullying is dead,” Zarif said. He added, “I want to see first the United States going back to its commitments, compensating Iran for its losses, and giving us guarantees that it won’t do it again.”

The chief diplomat noted, “The United States needs to find a seat at the table before it starts raising questions. It does not have a seat because it left the room. And while it left the room, it didn’t matter which president did it. While it was out of the room it tried to torpedo that room. It tried everything to destroy that room. Now if it wants to come back to that room, it has to rebuild the room, then enter the room, sit at the table, and then, as I said, prove your brotherhood before you ask for inherits.”

The foreign minister said if other members of the JCPOA go back to their commitments, Iran is prepared to go back to its commitments, underling that Iran exhausted procedures – the DRM procedure- envisioned in the nuclear deal.

“The United States decided to violate the JCPOA. It decided to break the JCPOA. It decided to leave the JCPOA. It decided to prevent others from implementing the JCPAO. And it’s reaping the rewards now. As simple as that,” he pointed out.

Zarif said, “We don’t succumb to pressure. Today, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. You now that war. You now that everybody supported Saddam Hussein. You now everybody gave him all the weapons, even the Western countries gave him chemical weapons. Where is Saddam Hussein now and where Iran is now. So if we wanted to accept bullying, Saddam Hussein was still around and Saddam Hussein would be creating a lot of terror.”

Source: Tehran Times