Seyed Mohammad Marandi made the remarks in an interview with Sputnik News Agency.
While Iran "very swiftly carried out all of its obligations," with Russia and China also being "keen on implementing the deal," the US and the European countries were less eager to follow their example, Marandi remarked.
"The Americans and the Europeans have never been sincere about obligations and about agreements and deals. And the JCPOA is one such example. If we consider the reports to be correct, this is not unexpected. This is simply a confirmation of previous policies," he said.
According to Marandi, this approach effectively encourages Iran and other countries to look for partners other than the Western countries and helps foment mistrust towards the West.
He observed that, when it comes to anti-Iranian sanctions, Western powers have already "sanctioned everything that is of significance," even going as far as "effectively sanctioning Iran from importing medicines."
At the same time, Marandi noted, Western powers have essentially lost “their leverage over Iran” because, with all the sanctions they’ve already imposed on the country, they simply got nothing left to threaten Tehran with.
Marandi also stressed the importance of Iran becoming a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as this move affords Tehran an opportunity to "create greater cooperation" and "build relations" with other nations "without the West disrupting or attempting to disrupt these relationships."
"These organizations help independent countries to cooperate with one another and therefore, decreasing the ability of Western countries to cause harm to nations in the Global South," Marandi said.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and a group of countries known as P5+1 i.e. five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States) plus the European Union.
Under the auspices of this deal, Iran agreed to limit its pursuit of nuclear technologies in exchange for the lifting of the severe economic sanctions previously imposed on the country.
In 2018, however, then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal that was brokered during the presidency of his predecessor Barack Obama.
Iran and the P4+1 (remaining parties to the nuclear deal or the JCPOA) have held several rounds of talks to revive the JCPOA, mainly in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Iran has insisted that it will fully abide by the deal once the illegal sanctions are removed.
The talks were stalled in September 2022 due to the US refusal to lift the sanctions on Tehran amid the continued indifference of the other Western powers towards Iran's demands.
SKH/PR
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