Speaking to journalists in Bangladesh on Wednesday, the top Iranian diplomat said that as announced from the day one that if the negotiations were to yield no results, Iran would take steps to scale back on its JCPOA commitments.
As Iran has announced earlier, Zarif said, if the Europeans cannot carry out their commitments in relation to oil sales and returning the oil money to Iran, the Islamic Republic would take the steps to reduce the JCPOA commitments.
The foreign minister said that Iran will take the third step to reduce JCPOA commitments in the next two days, adding that as President Rouhani announced earlier today, the third step will have considerable impacts on Iran’s nuclear program.
He further pointed out that if the negotiations yield no results again in the next two months, Iran will take the fourth step, while stressing that Iran will not stop the talks and will continue to negotiate.
He said that negotiation would not mean giving up and accepting the other side’s conditions.
He further rejected some calls inside the country for relying on resistance discourse and stop negotiations, saying that while the negotiations are going on, Iran continues its resistance approach in line with the instructions of the Leader.
Zarif noted “negotiation is resistance and is in continuation of resistance.”
Heading a high-ranking political-economic delegation, Zarif arrived in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka to hold high-level talks with senior officials of South Asian country yesterday. He will depart for Indonesia as the next stop of his several-nation Asian tour he started recently tomorrow after attending a regional meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and a meeting with the Farsi language teachers in Bangladesh. He has already met Bangladeshi PM, FM and parliament speaker.
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