TEHRAN (Iran News) – “Iran’s request is realistic, and that is for the United States to lift sanctions and return to the nuclear deal. I do not see any other alternative,” said Araghchi in an interview with the Italian newspaper of la Repubblica about Iran’s request to the new US administration.

“We negotiated in good faith and acted in good faith to the JCPOA,” he added.

“It is the turn of the new US administration to make up for the mistakes of the previous administration. They must lift all sanctions to return to the nuclear deal,” he noted, adding, “We are ready to fulfill all of our obligations under the JCPOA, provided that the Americans live up to their commitments and lift the sanctions.”

Referring to some claims about the secret contact of Iran with the US, Araghchi said, “We have not had any contact and we have no intention of doing so.”

“At the moment, we have no interest in any direct contact and we think that the JCPOA is the right format and the talks should be done in that format,” he highlighted.

“There will be no JCPOA Plus, no new agreements, no new negotiations on the JCPOA,” said Araghchi about the covering of new issues, including Iran’s missile program in the Iran nuclear deal.

“Iranian missiles are the only reliable defense tool for Iran, and there is no negotiation on this issue,” he added.

“I do not think Europeans have the right to talk about this,” Seyed Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister of Iran, said in an interview with Iran’s state TV on Monday night, adding that the Europeans’ non-compliance with the JCPOA was fully a deviation from their JCPOA commitments.

Araghchi was responding to a spokesman for the European Union who accused Iran of deviating from its JCPOA after it raised the uranium enrichment level, according to a Fars News report.

“The Europeans should be grateful to Iran for preserving the JCPOA up until now even though it did not enjoy a sanctions relief in the past few years,” the deputy foreign minister said.

Iran has tried to make the Europeans realize that the era to implement the JCPOA one-sidedly is over and that the Europeans need to get the message before it is too late. In fact, if the Europeans keep dragging their feet on implementing their commitment, Iran may raise the level of uranium enrichment to even higher percentages.