Sept. 26 (EIRNS)) — Iran will not agree to any more strict version of the JCPOA in order to get U.S. sanctions lifted, its new Foreign Minister told the New York Times in a Sept. 23 interview. “We will not have a so-called ‘longer and stronger’ deal,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir -Abdollahian said. The JCPOA itself “has a lot of harsh critics in Iran,” he said, “but we accepted it.”
“The standard for us,” Amir-Abdollahian went on, “will be one to watch the action of U.S. officials and judge based on actions taken by President Biden,” rather than on Biden’s “paradoxical statements.”
The minister suggested that the Iran deal went off the rails before Donald Trump was elected President. He argued that President Barack Obama had worked, even after the 2015 accord was reached, to keep Iran from reaping the benefits of sanctions relief. “It’s important to note that the violations began under Obama, and then President Trump,” he said, contending that banks and energy companies pulled back from signing deals even when the agreement was in place. The Times added that many companies refused to invest in Iran even with the sanctions removed, because they feared the rules would change again after the 2016 presidential election, a fear that proved warranted.
The same could happen again, Mr. Amir-Abdollahian said, so Iran is learning how to live in a world of sanctions. “We will not tie the fate of our nation to the JCPOA,” he said. “We will return to the negotiations and will do so very quickly, but if our counterparts don’t change their behavior we may not reach the required result.”