Zarif made the remark while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference on US sanctions and its unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018.

The Iranian top diplomat maintained that the upcoming visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Iran, as well as President Rouhani’s visits to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, will give the Islamic Republic an excellent opportunity to define its policies, discuss plans for the future, and find a solution to confront those destructive policies that have targeted the whole world.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will make a visit to Tehran from 12-14 June. Meanwhile, President Rouhani is slated to visit Tajikistan on 14-15 June for the 5th summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). The Iranian president will then participate at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit which will be held on 13-14 June in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Asked to comment about the talks between an Iranian and German delegation on Monday, and whether Germany has anything to say about the EU’s lack of commitment to the nuclear deal, Zarif said “Europeans are in no position to criticize Iran even in fields unrelated to the JCPOA. The policies of the West in the region have brought us nothing but destruction.”

“What Europeans and the remaining sides to the JCPOA need to do is to normalize the situation for Iran’s economic relations. Now they have to say how successful they have been in this regard,” Zarif added.

Elsewhere, Zarif stressed that what they “do” with regard to the nuclear deal is not important, but rather, it is the “result” that matters. “They keep saying that we did our best, but nothing happened. Well, we can also do our best from now on and see that nothing happens.”

Zarif also maintained that Iran has not given the remaining sides to the nuclear deal an ‘ultimatum’. “It’s not about an ultimatum. We just announced our plan.”

A year after the US pulled out from the JCPOA, Iran revealed countermeasures to US’ withdrawal, giving the other remaining parties to the JCPOA 60 days to comply with their commitments, particularly those regarding Iran’s economic interests in the banking and energy sectors, before reducing portions of its own commitments to the agreement stage by stage.

Iran has stressed that it has no intention to leave the JCPOA, and its decision on reducing commitments is still within the framework of the agreement, as confirmed by the latest report by the IAEA.