Iran may withdraw from JCPOA if EU’s special mechanism doesn’t work

He made the remarks at a roundtable at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York on Saturday evening.

Asked if that would open the door to a US military attack, he said, “I think if the United States believed it could succeed in such an attack, it would have done so,” The Washington Post reported.

Zarif went on to say that Iran plans to get around the US sanctions on its oil exports by conducting trade in currencies other than the US dollar, adding, “the actual mechanism would be to avoid dollars.”

“You can use your own currency, sell stuff in your own currency, buy stuff in the other country’s currency, and at the end of a specific period, balance it out in a non-dollar currency. It’s quite possible and may even be profitable.”

Criticizing the US’ meddlesome actions in the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister added sarcastically, “have you seen that map with all the US bases around us and said, ‘Why are these Iranians putting their country in the middle of all these bases? We are in our region. We have not invaded any country. We have not sent troops anywhere we were not asked. We have not bombed any country. We have not taken territory from any country. We are content with our size, with our geography, with our resources. We have no eye on anybody else’s territory, resources or people.”

When asked to clarify the conversations with former Secretary of States John Kerry, Zarif highlighted that “I didn’t know that you still had witch hunts here in the US.” What Kerry has done has been to encourage us to stay in the deal, Zarif added.

MAH/PR