Iran’s foreign minister said on Thursday that the nation will not renegotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal following President Trump’s fast-approaching deadline to pull out of the deal.
“Iran will not renegotiate what was agreed years ago and has been implemented,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a YouTube video titled “A Message from Iran.”
Zarif’s video comes just more than a week prior to Trump’s May 12 deadline to decide whether or not to withdraw from the nuclear deal if it is not renegotiated and changes are made to limit Iran’s ballistic missile program.
European countries that also signed the deal want to save the pact, as they think Iran is abiding by the terms of the deal.
“On 11 occasions since [signing the deal], the U.N. nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran has implemented all of its obligations,” Zarif said. “In contrast, the U.S. has consistently violated the agreement, especially by bullying others from doing business with Iran.”
“Let me make it absolutely clear and once and for all: we will neither outsource our security nor will we renegotiate or add onto a deal we have already implemented in good faith,” he added.
Iran has said that it doesn’t intend to reduce its footprint in Middle East affairs and stop developing a ballistic missile program, which it claims would be for self defense only.
“It now appears that … some Europeans have been offering more concessions from our pocket,” Zarif said. “This appeasement entails a new deal that would include matters we all decided to exclude at the [onset] of our negotiations.”
As a result of the 2015 deal, Iran limited its enrichment of uranium and reconfigured a heavy-water reactor so that it could no longer produce plutonium. In exchange, Iran gained major sanctions relief and could sell oil on the global market.
Zarif also took aim at Trump for wanting to change the deal.
“To put it in real estate terms, when you buy a house and move your family in, or demolish it to build a skyscraper, you cannot come back two years later and renegotiate the price,” he said.
Watch Zarif’s statement here:
