TEHRAN, Iran – President Joe Biden follows the same policy as his predecessor against Iran, the country’s foreign minister said on Sunday, two days before Tehran threatened to restrict UN inspections of its nuclear facilities.
In an interview with the English-language news agency Press TV, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy is still being applied to Iran.
“The United States is addicted to sanctions, but it must know that Iran will not give in to pressure,” said Zarif. “We are not looking for nuclear weapons.”
He reiterated Tehran’s position that Washington should take the first step towards reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which offered relief from Iran’s sanctions in exchange for its agreement to restrict its nuclear program.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, also known as the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan, in May 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions in an attempt to isolate Iran and drastically reduce its oil exports.
In response, Iran began to violate some of the agreement’s nuclear limits and, in December, Iranian lawmakers passed a bill that would suspend part of the UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if the signatories do not provide relief from the sanctions by February 23. , which is Tuesday.
Iran will also block an additional protocol that allows UN inspectors to conduct more intrusive inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Zarif insisted that this does not mean that Iran is abandoning the agreement, but said the United States had yet to lift sanctions to rescue the pact. “All of our steps are reversible,” he said.
The Biden government announced last week that it was ready to negotiate with other world powers and Iran to discuss the deal, but countries are at odds over who should take the first step.
Zarif’s comparison of Biden’s approach to Trump’s tactics in Iran is a sign of dissatisfaction with the pace and attitude of the Biden government, said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, Middle East security researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank of London.
“There was optimism that the Biden government would have acted more quickly with regard to Iran,” said Tabrizi. “Instead, a month later, he just stated that he was ready to participate in the negotiations last week – and for the negotiations to translate into something concrete, it will probably take some time.
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Meanwhile, UN chief of nuclear surveillance, Rafael Grossi, met with the head of Iran’s atomic program on Sunday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that the visit aimed to find “a mutually acceptable solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country”.
Grossi is expected to inform the media of the results of the talks on Sunday.
Prior to the meeting, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, told Iranian state television on Saturday that the purpose of Grossi’s visit was to “minimize possible damage” to collaborations between Tehran and the IAEA.
He added that nuclear inspections will be reduced by 20% to 30% after Tuesday, but that they will still continue.
Amin Khodadadi reported from Tehran, Yuliya Talmazan from London.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
