Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran’s supreme leader will not meet President Donald Trump unless Washington halts its “economic terrorism” that has hurt ordinary Iranians.
Zarif said the removal of US sanctions – which he described as a form of extortion, arm twisting and intimidation – could also help salvage the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, which the US unilaterally withdrew from last year.
He said Tehran has the right to reduce its compliance under the nuclear pact after the US left, but it can return to full implementation if the US fulfils its commitment and returns to the table.
“We are prepared to leave (the pact) because we have nothing to lose,” he told a forum in Kuala Lumpur. But Tehran also believes that the only way to avoid a “nuclear holocaust” is to destroy all nuclear weapons, he said.
“We say that if you (the US) come back to your commitments, you fulfil your commitments and the commitments are to normalise economic relations with Iran, we will revert back to full implementation and that is still on the table,” he added.
In recent months, Tehran has announced that it would cross limits imposed by the multinational pact on the size and potency of its nuclear stockpile.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday backed off from possible talks with Trump, just a day after the US president said the two could meet on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 summit this week.
Read the article in the Shepparton News (AAP Newswire).