Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during his stay in New York that Tehran has “many options” if the U.S. pulls out of a nuclear agreement, adding that those options are “not pleasant.”
“The reason that President Trump has not withdrawn from the deal over the past 15 months in spite of the fact that he did not like the deal has been the fact that everybody has advised the administration that this is not a bilateral agreement between Iran and the United States and withdrawing from it would be seen by the international community as an indication that the United States is not a reliable partner,” Zarif said during his interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“Iran has many options and those options are not pleasant,” he said, adding that Iran’s “nuclear activities” are ready to be resumed at a “much greater speed.”
Zarif also stated that there is no reason for Iran to remain in the agreement with other western powers if the accord’s benefits “start to diminish.” He added that Iran is not planning on accepting an agreement between the U.S. and its allies which is made by Trump’s wishes.
Since he became president, Trump has regularly vowed to tear up the “worst deal ever negotiated,” and has set a May 12 deadline to improve the accord.
“What is important is for the Europeans to bring the United States into compliance because Iran has been in compliance with the deal. It’s been the United States that has failed to comply,” Zarif said.
“President Trump has made it very clear that it is trying to dissuade our economic partners from engaging with Iran and that’s a clear violation of the deal. So I think if, if European members of the nuclear agreement, the E3, want to make the work, they have to make the deal sustainable and in order to make it sustainable it’s not to address the additional demands of the United States but bring the United States in compliance with its obligations already undertaken under the deal.”
Zarif was asked if any nation, including North Korea, would make a deal with Trump if he pulls out of the nuclear deal, to which Zarif responded “countries will make their own decisions.”
“Obviously this would be a very bad precedent if the United States sends this message to the international community that the length or the duration of any agreement would depend on the duration of the presidency. That would mean people will at least think twice before they start negotiating with the United States.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister also said that the U.S. should not be afraid of Iran for pursuing nuclear technologies because they are not planning to make an atomic bomb but they want to use nuclear energy for electrical power.
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