US Used to Violating Laws, Agreements: Iran’s FM
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US government has gotten used to breaching regulations and agreements, after he met his Russian counterpart for talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“Breaking international regulations and agreements has now become a habit for the US regime,” Zarif told reporters in Moscow on Monday, after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The top Iranian diplomat said he and Lavrov discussed the JCPOA and a broad range of bilateral, regional and international issues.
Zarif added that Iran attaches significance to the opportunity for talks with Russians on the 2015 nuclear deal and the critical situation surrounding the agreement, from which the US withdrew earlier this month.
Zarif arrived in Moscow on Monday after visiting China as part of a tight diplomatic tour for talks on the JCPOA. He will later go to Brussels for talks with the European parties to the JCPOA on the possibility of preserving the accord in a way that the Iranian nation’s interests are guaranteed.
In a speech from the White House on May 8, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear deal, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after around two years of negotiations.
On May 9, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei urged that any decision to keep the deal running without the US should be conditional on “practical guarantees” from the three European parties to the JCPOA.