In an interview with NBC News, Zarif said that the government of Pezeshkian is ready to work with other countries to end the conflict in Gaza.
“We want to move in a more peaceful, more stable world for our citizens and for the citizens of the world. We don’t seek war, but we will defend ourselves,” Zarif said.
Zarif also said Iran had the right to retaliate for the Israeli assassination of the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, in July by the Israeli regime.
After the assassination, Zarif said, “We were asked by the international community to exercise restraint in order to bring about an end to the war in Gaza.” But the promise of a cease-fire deal never materialized, he said.
Referring to the JCPOA, Zarif said the US had only itself to blame, adding that it was the US that withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord during Donald Trump’s administration.
“It was the miscalculation of the Trump administration that withdrew from the nuclear deal. It has been a lose-lose situation,” Zarif said.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.
Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.
The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.
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