Above photo: AP.
Iranian leader Khamenei recalled Washington’s previous broken promises.
Following years of sanctions removal talks.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on 7 February that negotiations with the US government have no effect on solving the Islamic Republic’s issues in his first comments after US President Donald Trump signed an order to reimpose “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran.
“Negotiations with the US are not reasonable, honorable, and intelligent and have no effect on solving the country’s problems, and the reason is what we have experienced in the past,” Khamenei said during a meeting with Air Force personnel in Tehran.
“In the past years, we negotiated with the United States and several countries for about two years, and the Iranian side smiled at it, shook hands with it, was honest with it, and made generous concessions, and a treaty was reached, but the Americans did not act according to the treaty, and the person in power tore it up and did not abide by it,” the Iranian leader added.
Khamenei also recalled that after signing the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – also known as the Iran nuclear deal – Tehran gave “many concessions to the other side. But the US did not implement the same treaty.”
“The same person who is in office now tore up the treaty. He said he would tear it down and did; they didn’t act upon [the agreement],” he said, referring to Trump’s first term in office and his unilateral exit from the JCPOA.
“We must not allow them to pretend that if we sit at the negotiating table, this or that problem will be solved. No; no problem will be solved by negotiating with the US … Therefore, negotiations with such a government should not be conducted, and it is not wise and prudent to negotiate with it,” Khamenei stressed.
His comments followed statements by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday in which he also replied to Washington’s renewed sanctions by saying the Islamic Republic is not seeking to possess nuclear weapons, adding that verifying his claim “is an easy task.”
After signing the order to reimpose his “maximum pressure” on Iran, Trump said, “We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal with Iran.”
“We don’t want to be tough on Iran. We don’t want to be tough on anybody. But they just can’t have a nuclear bomb,” he added.