Iran Not to Retreat from Its Principles: President

Addressing a gathering of the heads of Iranian diplomatic missions in Tehran on Wednesday, Raisi said his government pursues a policy of cooperation with all the countries that are dealing with Tehran in good faith.

However, he added, Iran puts up resistance in the face of the states that are showing enmity towards the country.

“We believe that resistance, not retreat and surrender, is the country’s way to progress. Therefore, we will never retreat from our principles. Of course, strengthening deterrence is among our major policies,” he asserted.

Raisi further expressed Iran’s readiness to interact with European countries, which had miscalculated about last year’s foreign-backed riots, if they correct their calculations and prove their good will, Press TV reported.

Violent riots broke out in Iran last September after the death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini.

She fainted at a police station in the capital Tehran and was pronounced dead three days later at the hospital. An official report by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization concluded that Amini’s death was caused by illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs.

Several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have used their spy and propaganda apparatuses to provoke the deadly riots, according to Iran’s intelligence community.

Also in his remarks, Raisi said Iran “cooperates with each country based on its pertinence and does not wait for anyone's frown or smile, unlike the past, when some people thought that the foreign policy should be coordinated with a few countries deemed to be determining the fate of others.”

He further urged Iranian ambassadors to double their efforts to strengthen ties with Muslim, neighboring and aligned countries and not to disregard Iran’s cooperation with “emerging and future-building powers” such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS.

The Iranian chief executive rejected as “completely wrong” the perception that many countries are not willing to cooperate with Tehran due to sanctions.

Speaking at the event, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said his department is seriously following the path of neutralizing the West's oppressive sanctions against the Islamic Republic, noting that the diplomatic path for their removal is also open.

The US, under former president Donald Trump, reinstated crippling sanctions on Iran after unilaterally walking away from the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, despite Iran’s full compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Although Trump failed to achieve his professed goals with the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign, the waves of sanctions have taken a heavy toll on ordinary Iranians.

The sanctions, maintained by Trump’s successor Joe Biden, have restricted the financial channels necessary for Iran to pay for imports of basic goods and medicine.