Tehran, SAEDNEWS: "The US and E3 have been transparent about their transgressions and have repeatedly stated their ill-intention to compel Iran to renegotiate the JCPOA provisions through economic pressure and blackmail,” Zarif said in a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres published on Friday.
The Iranian foreign minister pointed out that his experience as Iran's foreign minister shows that the Western powers find it beneath them to engage on equal footing with middle-income countries, let alone developing nations.
While Iran fully complied with its obligations under the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Western countries only paid lip service to their contractual obligations, Zarif said.
He also pointed to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 under former US president Donald Trump, saying after Trump withdrew from the deal, the US and E3 believed that they could reap the fruits of their poisonous tree and resume their old habit of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.
“The Biden administration—again, aided and abetted by the E3—has since its inauguration in January 2021 continued Trump’s economic terrorism against Iranians as supposed ‘leverage’ to achieve the same objectives,” Zarif wrote in his letter.
He continued, the EU/E3 remained politically committed to the JCPOA and initially took a measured and mild diplomatic stance against the unlawful US withdrawal from the JCPOA and its re-imposition of sanctions.
"However, as it became gradually clear to the EU/E3 that they were incapable of performing their own obligations under the JCPOA and commitments undertaken following the US’s withdrawal at the highest level, they sought to conceal their multiple cases of significant non-performance by calling for a “Trump deal,” in clear violation of Paragraphs 28 and 29 of the JCPOA, and Operative Paragraph 2 of UNSCR 2231 (2015)," he added.
Elsewhere in his letter, Zarif said the Iranian government and people have made enormous sacrifices to preserve the JCPOA in spite of US contempt for it and EU/E3 complacency in the face of that contempt.
“As history has shown, the Iranian people have throughout the course of their millennia-old and glorious civilization triumphed over intimidation, coercion or extortion,” he stated.
Zarif said at the same time, today, the Islamic Republic of Iran remains prepared to reciprocally contribute to serious efforts to revive the full implementation of the JCPOA by all in an atmosphere of good faith, equal footing and mutual respect.”
In relevant remarks earlierin July, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi blasted the US and UK for linking a humanitarian exchange of prisoners with the talks over the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
"The US & UK need to understand this and stop linking a humanitarian exchange—ready to be implemented—with the JCPOA," Araqchi, also head of Iran's negotiating team in Vienna talks, tweeted.
"We're in a transition period as a democratic transfer of power is underway in our capital. Vienna talks must thus obviously await our new administration. This is what every democracy demands," he added.
He underlined that keeping such an exchange hostage to political aims achieves neither, and said, "Ten prisoners on all sides may be released tomorrow if the US & the UK fulfill their part of the deal."
On Sunday morning, Robert Malley, the US Special Envoy for Iran affairs tweeted a statement in reaction to Araqchi's remarks.
"These comments are an outrageous effort to deflect blame for the current impasse on a potential mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA. We stand ready to return to Vienna to complete work on a mutual return to the JCPOA once Iran made the necessary decisions," the statement claimed (Source: FARS NEWS).
