In a tweet on Tuesday, the top diplomat condemned the fact that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed concern about Iran’s nuclear program on the same day he announced the UK will increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads by 40 percent.

“Unlike the UK and allies, Iran believes nukes and all WMDs [Weapons of Mass Destructions] are barbaric and must be eradicated,” Zarif wrote, alluding to Iran’s insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful and not aimed at making weapons.

During an appearance at the UK House of Commons on Tuesday, Johnson said “we remain extremely concerned by Iran’s influence in the region, the disruptive behavior of Iran and particularly, of course, we are concerned about the risk of Iran developing a viable nuclear weapon.”

The prime minister also confirmed that the UK’s cap on the number of warheads will now increase to 260, having been previously dropped to 180.

As confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, while its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a ruling (fatwa) banning nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

But Western powers have long regarded Iran’s nuclear program with suspicion, which ultimately resulted in a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, including the US. The landmark deal was aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

But former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran.

Trump’s successor, Joe Biden has backed the deal, which was signed when Biden was the US vice president. But since he was sworn in January, Tehran and Washington have been engaged in rhetoric with Iran demanding the removal of sanctions before talks to revive the deal.

In recent months, Iran has stepped up its nuclear activity with Khamenei, the country’s Supreme leader, warning Tehran could boost its enrichment of uranium from the current 20 percent to 60 percent “if the country needs it”.

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The foreign minister said that all the people are equal in the face of this common human pain.

“If one country becomes vulnerable to the threat of corona pandemic, the entirety of the international community will suffer from the same vulnerability,” Zarif said.

“We cannot buy a security for ourselves at the cost of making others insecure. We cannot build a future for ourselves by putting pressure on others. I wish COVID-19 would at least teach us this lesson to understand that in an interconnected world, we are all boarding the same boat.”

He stressed the need to act indiscriminately in distributing the vaccine among the poor and rich nations.

Referring to Iran’s difficulties caused by the US tough sanctions to provide medical supplies from abroad, Zarif said that the Iranian scientists successfully managed to produce COVID-19 vaccines as they already manufactured missiles domestically.

The United States should act quickly to revive Iran’s nuclear deal, because once Iran’s presidential election period kicks off it is unlikely much will happen until later this year, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Monday (Mar 15).

Speaking at the European Policy Centre think tank, Zarif repeated Tehran’s longstanding demand that Washington returns first to

He added that he had seen no change between the Biden administration and the Trump administration’s policy of maximum pressure to force Iran back to the negotiating table. He said he saw no reason to hold preliminary talks because the US was making “extraneous” demands. compliance by lifting sanctions.

“There is a time constraint and that is once we go to our election it is a lame-duck government and (it) will not be able to do anything serious and then we will have a waiting period of almost six months,” he said, referring to a presidential election due on Jun 18.

“It is advisable for the United States to move fast and moving fast requires them not to be shy, but takes measures that they need to take.”

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“#JCPOA IS the comprehensive plan concluded by E3+3 (incl the US) & Iran. The “C” stands for COMPREHENSIVE. It has been implemented only by Iran,” he wrote.

The top diplomat added, “Instead of posturing, US & E3 must finally live up to their commitments made, but never fulfilled.”

He warned that Iran will reciprocate the moves by the JCPOA participants.

In a blatant disregard for the fact that Washington was the party that unilaterally quit the deal in 2018 and should return to compliance, some 140 members of US congress wrote earlier in the day a letter to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and urged him to pursue a “comprehensive” deal with Iran.

The US under ex-president Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018 and imposed the “toughest ever” sanctions on Iran as part of his so-called “maximum pressure,” which tried in vain to force Iran back to the negotiating table for talks on a “better deal.”

Despite throwing verbal support behind the JCPOA, the European parties to the deal — France, Britain, and Germany — ultimately succumbed to Washington’s pressure and failed to fulfill their contractual commitments to Tehran, mainly by confronting the American sanctions.

That promoted Tehran to begin a set of retaliatory measures in several stages as part of its legal rights stipulated in Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA. The latest such measure was the halt in the implementation of the Additional Protocol to the NPT Safeguards Agreement, which was required by the parliament-adopted law.

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Ireland’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the trip, made at an important juncture of bilateral relations, was appointing a chargé d’affaires in Iran and reopening of the Irish Embassy in Tehran until 2023.

Referring to his country’s support of the JCPOA, the Irish foreign minister said, “As the facilitator, Ireland is eager to talk closely with all players and encourage all participants to fully abide by the deal.”

Earlier today, the Irish foreign minister met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who in the meeting, urged all participants of the JCPOA to fully implement the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

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“As Iran’s FM [foreign minister] & chief negotiator, I will shortly present our constructive concrete plan of action – through proper diplomatic channels,” Zarif said on Twitter.

A French diplomatic source and another European official said on Thursday that Iran had given encouraging signs in recent days about opening informal talks after European powers scrapped plans to criticize Tehran at the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran has so far refused to take part in a meeting brokered by the European Union between world powers and the United States on reviving its 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran’s nuclear policy is decided by the country’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and not the president of the government.

Tehran and Washington have emerged from former US President Donald Trump’s attempts to wreck Iran’s nuclear deal but are locked in a standoff over who should move first to save it. Trump pulled out of the landmark accord in 2018.

Britain, France, and Germany decided to pause the submission of a resolution critical of Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday to not harm the prospects for diplomacy, after what they said were concessions gained from Iran to deal with outstanding nuclear issues.

“JCPOA cannot be renegotiated—period,” Zarif said on his Twitter account.

Zarif was responding to Wendy Sherman, U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, who said earlier that the facts on the ground have changed since the nuclear agreement was signed, calling for a “stronger” deal.

“I would note that 2021 is not 2015, when the deal was agreed, nor 2016 when it was implemented,” Sherman said during a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, according to Press TV. “The facts on the ground have changed, the geopolitics of the region has changed, and the way forward must similarly change.”

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Referring to the significance of collective effort in the battle against drug trafficking, Zarif said, “Such efforts and sacrifices do not just benefit the Iranian nation… they serve the people of other countries.”

The top diplomat said, “We continue to make sacrifices in the fight against drug trafficking because of our commitment to international law and, of course, our commitment to the people of our country.”

However, he noted that the Islamic Republic’s “equipment and capabilities in this regard are limited,” and if such needs are not supplied, Iran will definitely think of other priorities in this area.

Besides the lack of commitment by the Western countries in the fight against drug trafficking, the illegal anti-Iran sanctions have also stymied the country’s capacity to fight drug transferring by depriving it of the necessary equipment.

Iran shares 1,600 kilometers of border with Afghanistan and Pakistan and lies on the main trafficking route for poppy, the source of opium and heroin, from Afghanistan to Western Europe.

The country believes the international community must take joint responsibility and resume technical contributions to control drug trading and its impacts in the region and beyond.

Iran is at the forefront of the fight against drug trafficking and thousands of Iranian forces have been so far martyred to protect the world from the danger of drugs. Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past decades.

The country has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab, and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades.

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He noted that such an attempt with the Board will further confuse the current situation.

“We hope that reason will prevail, otherwise we will have solutions,” Zarif said.

Western media have reported that the US is seeking to present an anti-Iran resolution in the upcoming meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors.

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said on Sunday that if the IAEA Board of Governors issues a resolution against Iran, Tehran will reciprocate

“U.S. admits that only after it ‘left the JCPOA, Iran has taken steps away’ while until then ‘Iran was living up to its limits.’ That US behavior—the CAUSE—has not changed,” Zarif said in a tweet on Thursday.

The foreign minister was referring to U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price’s remarks during his February 24 press briefing, at which he said that Iran started to reduce its nuclear commitments with the 2015 nuclear deal – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)- after the U.S. withdrew from it.

“Over the course of the past couple years – ever since May of 2018 when the United States left the JCPOA, Iran has taken steps away from the nuclear deal, the nuclear deal that, when it was in effect, was verifiably and permanently blocking Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Price claimed.

The spokesperson pointed out, “We can’t go back to the Joint Commission and make clear when we think Iran has come into violation of the JCPOA. Look, again, I would point you to the fact that we have full faith and full confidence in the director-general of the IAEA, full faith and full confidence in the IAEA. The IAEA, while the Iran deal, while the JCPOA was in full effect, while Iran was abiding by it, they expressed confidence that Iran was living up to its limits.”

Priced added, “Now, this is a – not an uncomplicated set of issues, and I know you’re referring to some of these technical matters. But the IAEA – and I certainly wouldn’t want to speak to them, but I suspect if you go and ask them, they will tell you that they were satisfied by Iran’s compliance with the deal. Iran was complying with the deal.”

Zarif also criticized the European signatories to the JCPOA – France, Germany, and the UK (E3)- for not doing business with Iran for three years after the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal.

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The Strategic Act obliged the Government to stop voluntary acceptance of the IAEA Additional Protocol until the other participants to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action adhere to their undertakings under the accord.

Zarif said that Iran had officially informed the IAEA on February 15 about the Law that Iran will stop implementing the Additional Protocol on February 23.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif indicated in a tweet Friday that “the U.S. must lift all sanctions that the (former) Trump administration imposed immediately and unconditionally, in which case (Tehran) will back down on all the steps that it has taken.”

Zarif also told Iranian media that the U.S. now understands that its policy of absolute pressure on Tehran has failed and the Europeans must comprehend that there is no point in applying pressure on Iran because it does not work …  If the U.S. returns to the agreement, he said, we will return to the agreement.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh tweeted “token steps” now being taken by the U.S. are “great,” but that the important issue is to put the P5+1 group of countries back together. “The Trump administration,” he added “left the room and tried to blow it up.”

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Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday after the US takes action to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers through lifting sanctions, Tehran will want to negotiate on the damages it has suffered.

“When we meet, we will raise compensation,” Zarif told the Iranian state-owned news network PressTV in an hour-long interview.

“Whether those compensations will take the form of reparation, or whether they take the form of investment, or whether they take the form of measures to prevent a repeat of what Trump did,” he said about former US President Donald Trump.

Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed harsh, comprehensive sanctions that targeted all the sectors of Iran’s economy.

According to Zarif, Trump reimposed 800 sanctions that were put on Iran before the nuclear deal and imposed 800 new ones, all of which need to be lifted before the US can return to the deal.

The diplomat said from other signatories of the nuclear deal, China and Russia have been Iran’s “friends” during the sanctions era, evidence for which are dozens of sanctions imposed on their individuals and entities.

But Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, the European signatories of the deal together known as the E3, have engaged in no tangible efforts to maintain their ties with Iran, Zarif said.

“The situation Europe has created for itself is that it has to wait for the US to make a decision. It lives at the behest and mercy of the US,” he said.

“Now, they should convince the US to come back [to the nuclear deal] at least to allow them … to maintain their dignity and allow them to fulfill their obligations. That’s not a tall order.”

Iran’s foreign minister said if the US fails to lift sanctions, Iran will continue to boost its nuclear programme as per the law but will have no need to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear deal is formally known.

One year after Trump imposed sanctions, Iran gradually scaled back its commitments under the deal.

But after top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in November, the conservative parliament passed legislation that obligated the government to start 20 percent uranium enrichment and increase the country’s stockpile.

“This is not a threat. We are simply exercising the remedial measures foreseen in the JCPOA,” he said, adding Iran is only after normalising economic relations with the world and does not want to engage in “nuclear extortion” as former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed.

Instead, Zarif said, the US is engaging in extortion as it is still preventing Iran from buying food, medicine, and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The foreign minister also said the US is still blocking Iran’s request for a $5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund to fight the pandemic and is still preventing other countries such as South Korea from paying back billions of dollars’ worth of Iran’s money.

Joe Biden’s administration, he said, is continuing the “maximum pressure” campaign of Trump despite promising to restore the JCPOA.

However, Zarif said Iran will not need to abandon the nuclear deal.

“We got what we wanted out of the JCPOA. End of [United Nations] Security Council resolutions. End of US lies about our nuclear programme,” he said, adding Iran is the only country in the world to have its right to enrich uranium recognised by a UN Security Council resolution.

He also said Iran is now much less dependent on oil, so it can continue if the US fails to come back to the accord.

As part of the law passed by Parliament in December, the government of President Hassan Rouhani must end snap inspections of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by Sunday since US sanctions have not been lifted.

However, since IAEA General-Director Rafael Grossi offered to visit Tehran to discuss the move, Iran postponed implementation to Tuesday.

Grossi met with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Zarif on Sunday, but no details on the talks were released.

In his interview, however, Zarif said the decision to cut off the cameras installed by the IAEA in Iran’s nuclear sites is a technical one that will not be made by him.

“We will be required by law not to provide the tapes of those cameras to the IAEA,” the foreign minister added.

Grossi will hold a news conference in Vienna later on Sunday after leaving Tehran.

On Sunday, 226 members of Iran’s parliament signed a statement that emphasized Iran must stop voluntarily implementing the Additional Protocol, which provides broad inspection authority to the IAEA, starting on Tuesday.

Zarif conducted his interview with PressTV’s Marzieh Hashemi, an Iranian American journalist whose arrest and week-long detention in the US by the FBI sparked another diplomatic spat and increased tensions between the two countries.

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“Gravely concerned? Concerned? A little? Care to comment? I thought so.”

Previously, Zarif wrote in his tweeter account that “The US acknowledged Pompeo’s claims re Res. 2231 had no legal validity.” “We agree. In compliance w/ 2231: US unconditionally & effectively lift all sanctions imposed, re-imposed or re-labeled by Trump,” he added.

“We will then immediately reverse all remedial measures. Simple: #CommitActMeet,” he underlined.  Also, in a Twitter message on Thursday, he wrote “instead of sophistry & putting the onus on Iran, E3/EU must abide by own commitments & demand an end to Trump’s legacy of #EconomicTerrorism against Iran.”

He further said “Our remedial measures are a response to US/E3 violation. Remove the cause if you fear the effect.”

In a Twitter message on Thursday, he wrote “instead of sophistry & putting the onus on Iran, E3/EU must abide by own commitments & demand an end to Trump’s legacy of #EconomicTerrorism against Iran.”

He further said “Our remedial measures are a response to US/E3 violations. Remove the cause if you fear the effect.”

The United States and the European Troika have accelerated their attempts to pave the way for returning to the Iran nuclear deal amid approaching ultimatum for lifting sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Based on Iran’s Law on Strategic Action to Lift Sanctions and Protect the Interests of the Iranian Nation, the European and American powers are expected to reset the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) into its correct path and abide by their promised commitments under the deal.

The European Troika consists of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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