Iran’s top diplomat insisted Sunday the United States must first lift economic sanctions imposed on it by the Trump administration before the nuclear pact can be revived.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s remarks came as Tehran confirmed it will begin limiting additional international monitoring of its nuclear sites Tuesday.
Zarif’s comments also follow an offer from President Joe Biden’s administration to meet with Iran and other world powers involved in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal.
“The United States must return to the deal and lift all sanctions … The United States is addicted to sanctions but they should know that Iran will not yield to pressure,” Zarif said in an interview with Iran’s state-run, English-language broadcaster Press TV.
Zarif did not definitively confirm Iran is rejecting Biden’s offer of diplomacy.
His weekend remarks reflect the position Iran has continually held since the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear accord in 2018. Iran has said it will only resume negotiations with the U.S. once the sanctions are lifted because it is Washington, not Tehran, that exited the deal.
The U.S. has so far been unwilling to take this first step.
Zarif said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) surveillance cameras at some of Iran’s nuclear sites would be shut off on Feb. 23., in line with a law passed by Iran’s Parliament. These cameras were installed as part of an “Additional Protocol” of the nuclear deal.
The “Additional Protocol” is a voluntary agreement between Tehran and the IAEA reached as part of the nuclear agreement. Under the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017, adding that it had placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment.”
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