In an interview on Sunday, Bahram Ghasemi expressed regret that Europe’s proposed Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has not become operational due to “limitless American” pressure and said “I hope Europe will be able to defend its identity in the face of these pressures."
In the interview Ghasemi added that Iran is still hopeful the European trade mechanism will be put in place, but he added that at the same time Iran has many alternatives for trade, such as India, China, Russia and Turkey.
"Although we still hope that Europe would fulfill its obligations, Tehran has also tried options other than SPV mechanism with various countries, including China, Russia, India and Turkey.
"We think Europe is incapable of standing against US growing pressures regarding the promised financial mechanism for financial and trade exchange, and it does not have the ability to defend its identity and financial and economic institutions in the face of these pressures," he noted.
This is Europe's Achilles heel and if they could not resist the pressures to define the mechanism, the world will definitely change their attitude towards them, Ghasemi said, adding "Europe would lose its current position in the global arena."
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ghasemi referred to US president's secret trip to Iraq, saying "I hope the current leaders of the the White House would follow the path of wisdom and rationality, and we will see less problems in the world and in the region."
In the media, various interpretations were made for Trump's visit to Iraq; Trump also presented his own version of interpretation which was very interesting; his visit to Iraq was shrouded in secrecy after years of warmongering and spending 7000 billion dollars in the Middle East, Ghasemi added.
US president's travel to Iraq is a clear violation of the country's sovereignty and an obvious insult to its people, because he has traveled to Iraq for a visit to the US military base, without any previous announcement, he noted.
"Today, we see that the United States cannot remain in the Middle East, and the country has no place in the region anymore," Ghasemi said.
"There are still ambiguous about what approach the United States will take to Syria and even about the controversial comments that the US authorities have said about Afghanistan, but anyway, as the situation in the region shows, despite all the problems and ups and downs, the United States has no place in the region," Ghasemi concluded.
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