RABAT, March 6. /TASS/. The United States tried to spread Iranophobia across the region in order to isolate Tehran but failed, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview with Algeria's National Broadcasting Company during his visit to the country on March 2-3.
According to Raisi, "Iran's enemies, especially the Americans," have constantly tried to "engender Iranophobia and bring Arab Islamic countries closer" to Israel, but have failed. "They wanted to isolate us, but Iran did not become a pariah. Today, the country is more widely represented than ever before at the platforms of regional, inter-regional and international levels," the president emphasized. He added that attempts were made to "normalize relations between Muslim countries and the Zionist regime in order to make it harmless," but even these actions failed to gain any results. Those countries that maintained relations with Israel in the past "are now ashamed of these actions even in front of their own people," Raisi said.
Asked about Iran's nuclear program, the president pointed out that the Europeans and Americans "have a problem with Iran itself, not [its] nuclear bombs." According to Raisi, they want to "put pressure on a strong independent Islamic republic and its own nuclear industry." "We have repeatedly stated that we will use atomic energy for peaceful purposes only, and so far there has been no deviation from this course <...>. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversees our nuclear industry and has reported 15 times that the nuclear industry in Iran is of purely peaceful nature," the president recalled.
Iran's relations with the United States sharply deteriorated after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The culmination was the hostage-taking of American diplomats in Tehran on November 4, 1979. They were released in January 1981. This caused the rupture of diplomatic relations (the countries have not restored them until now). The US imposed economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic (including an embargo on oil supplies from Iran to the US). The sanctions have been repeatedly expanded and are still in effect. At that time Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. The country's authorities said that Tehran "will never accept the Israeli occupation of Islamic holy places" and does not recognize the State of Israel.
Negotiations on Iran's nuclear program
In 2015, the permanent five members of the UN Security Council and Germany signed a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran aimed at overcoming the crisis over Tehran's nuclear program. In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the deal. Current US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated his willingness to bring Washington back into the nuclear deal.
Since April 2021, the P5+1 and Germany had been negotiating with Iran to restore the JCPOA to its original form, but the talks concluded with no results in November 2022. The same month, Biden recognized that the Iran nuclear deal was effectively dead.
In February 2024, the US State Department said that the US administration was committed to a political and diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program issue. Simultaneously, the US does not rule out an armed conflict with Iran in 2024 because of the country's alleged attempts to build a nuclear bomb and says it is necessary to send a military signal to the republic and isolate Iran diplomatically in international terms.
On February 7, Ebrahim Raisi said at a meeting with heads of diplomatic missions that Iran will continue to assert its legitimate rights to develop its nuclear program peacefully, despite attempts by other countries to restrict it from doing so. Last December, the UK, Germany and France, citing an IAEA report, said Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium was 22 times more than the figure of 202.8 kilograms set by the JCPOA. In this regard, the representatives of the three countries claimed that Iran has been violating its commitments spelled out in UNSC Resolution 2231, which endorses the JCPOA, for more than four years. The Islamic Republic rejected these allegations.