TEHRAN (Iran News) –Ali Baqeri and Foreign Minister of Kuwait Abdullah Ali Al-Yahya held a meeting on the sidelines of a ministerial session of the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday.

Highlighting the cultural commonalities and close relations between the two countries, Baqeri said strong cooperation among Iran, Kuwait, and other regional countries would serve as a key factor in strengthening peace and sustainable stability in the region.

He also pointed to the foreign policy of late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in consolidating relations with the neighbors, saying strong mutual trust is the starting point for interaction among the neighboring countries.

He also described close economic ties between Iran and Kuwait as essential for enhancing bilateral relations and emphasized Iran’s commitment to expanding relations with Kuwait.

For his part, the Kuwaiti foreign minister referred to the historical, geographical, and cultural commonalities between the two countries and emphasized the Kuwaiti government’s readiness to comprehensively develop relations with Iran.

The two diplomats further called for the development of relations in all fields, activation, and strengthening of bilateral mechanisms, including the Joint Economic Commission and political and consular committees.

TEHRAN (Iran News) –Iran’s Top General: Americans pushing hard for lengthy and futile talks with Iran that would include new demands. In an address to a meeting of Police commanders on Saturday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said while the previous US president left the White House humiliatingly and the American policy of maximum pressure on Iran ended in failure, the new US administration has displayed nothing but empty promises and deception.

Experience shows that Democratic US governments say beautiful words and work like an iron fist in a velvet glove, and that they constantly hatch plots to create insecurity in Iran, the top general added.

Despite the promises about a breakthrough in economic ties with Iran and the removal of sanctions, what the US administration has presented in the past couple of months have been mere words without any action, he added.

“They (US) are trying hard to start lengthy and pointless talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran with new claims and demands, while the strategic policy of the Islamic Republic, as outlined and devised by the Supreme Leader, is only the full removal of the sanctions that they have imposed on Iran under any name,” Major General Baqeri stated.

The senior commander emphasized that Iran will resume honoring its nuclear commitments –as it has always fulfilled its promises- only after a detailed and practical verification of the complete termination of the sanctions.

His comments came after the JCPOA Joint Commission held a four-day round of talks in the Austrian city of Vienna, with representatives of Iran, Russia, China, France and the UK in attendance.

The US has been absent from the Commission and its discussions since 2018, when former American president Donald Trump took Washington out of the JCPOA and returned the sanctions that the nuclear accord had lifted.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a goal nor a holy verse that we would adhere to under any circumstances,” Major General Baqeri said, addressing a conference on civil defense in Tehran on Monday.

The JCPOA is a multilateral agreement with the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) that was reached following months of efforts by Iranian diplomats, he added.

One part of the JCPOA includes the acceptance of nuclear restrictions by the Islamic Republic and another part includes the removal of sanctions, the commander noted.

If sanctions are re-imposed under other pretexts, he added, Iran will definitely withdraw from the nuclear deal.

The 159-page nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 was reached in July 2015 and came into force in January 2016.

Since the historic deal was signed in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.

The US has even imposed many fresh sanctions against Iran, in flagrant defiance of the JCPOA.

In mid-September, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei lambasted the US for violating the JCPOA, warning that any “wrong move” concerning the nuclear deal would draw reactions from Iran.