Negotiations Must End Sanctions: Iranian President
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Tehran has always favored negotiations as a tool in diplomacy, but the talks on revival of the 2015 nuclear deal must yield practical results and fulfill the Iranian nation’s rights by ending the cruel sanctions.
Speaking at a televised interview on Saturday night, Raisi dismissed the idea of holding negotiations over the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under pressure, saying such tactics have never yielded the US and Europe any result.
“Negotiation and dialogue have always been and will continue to be part of the means that are in the service of diplomacy. We do not balk at negotiation and dialogue,” the president said.
“But the Americans and the Westerners are after negotiation in conjunction with pressure… This is while negotiations are there to avoid pressure,” he added.
Raisi explained that such pressure tactics have nothing to do with negotiation, adding, “I have directed them (the country’s authorities) to include negotiation on the agenda, but not under the shadow of the pressure that they (the West) are pursuing.”
The US and the Europeans have experienced this in the past too that applying such tactics to negotiation procedures “do not work,” the president stated, Press TV reported.
At the same time, he noted, Iran rules out any such notion as “negotiation for the sake of negotiation”.
The president urged that any interaction of the type reward the country with its expected results, namely the removal of Washington’s oppressive sanctions targeting the Iranian nation.
Raisi, however, asserted, “I will not take even one step back from (trying to revive) the Iranian nation’s rights, because they (the US and the Europeans) have subjected the nation to pressure through the sanctions.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian president said the US military presence in Afghanistan for two decades only resulted in the suffering of the Afghan people.
“As a result of the oppression that the Americans and (other) foreign countries imposed on Afghanistan, the country has suffered a great wound,” he noted.
“The issue of Afghanistan showed that not only does not the US’s presence contribute to security anywhere in the world, but also it disrupts the (occupied) area’s security,” he stated.
Raisi considered the only way out of Afghanistan’s woes to be the establishment of an all-inclusive and representative government in the absence of all foreign interference.
“They should let Afghanistan take its own decisions in the area,” the president said.
Iran considers Afghanistan and all other neighboring countries’ security to be integrated with its own, he added, urging speedy reestablishment of calm in the violence-wracked country.
