Iranian President: Due to US violations, the nuclear agreement is meaningless without guarantees

WORLD, Sept. 19 (YPA) – Tehran would be serious about reviving a deal on its nuclear program if there were guarantees the United States would not again withdraw from it, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Raisi added, “It needs to be lasting. There need to be guarantees. If there were a guarantee, then the Americans could not withdraw from the deal.”

He said the Americans had broken their promises on the deal, under which Tehran had restrained its nuclear program in exchange for relief from US, European Union and UN economic sanctions.

“They did it unilaterally. They said that, ‘I am out of the deal.’ Now making promises is becoming meaningless,” he said.

“We cannot trust the Americans because of the behavior that we have already seen from them. That is why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust.”

Raisi stressed the peacefulness of Iran’s nuclear program, and its uses in medical treatment, agriculture, oil and gas.

Commenting on the West’s claims that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, he  said, “We have responded to these claims several times. They are baseless. The Islamic Republic of Iran has said many times that possessing nuclear weapons has no place in our doctrine.”

\“There are Iranian nationals also imprisoned inside the US These people are only in there because they simply tried to circumvent sanctions. And the Americans, we have told them that we can talk to them about this. It can be conducted separately from the nuclear talks. It can be done between the two countries. It is a humanitarian issue. This can be negotiated,” he said in a response to a question regarding the prisoners.

E.M