The US must come to the negotiating table before Iran will agree to discuss returning to the confines of the deal negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015, Salehi told PBS news.
“Why do we want to complicate the issue?” Salehi asked the NewsHour’s Reza Sayah during an interview in Tehran. “The one who has left the JCPOA has to come back first,” he added, referring to the deal’s name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“It’s easy to resolve the issue. Come back to the JCPOA and not let this happen,” Salehi told Sayah.
In response to a baseless question over nuclear weapons, he referred to the Leader’s fatwa over the issue, stressing that the fatwa of the Leader of the Revolution against the acquisition, development, and use of nuclear weapons is the final word and firm stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iranian officials have always spoken about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program and the prohibition of nuclear weapons, he added.
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.
RHM/PR