Thirty days after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement of 12 conditions for returning to the negotiations table with Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif published on Wednesday a 15-condition article in response to the American official.
In it, he accused the White House of taking hostile measures against the Iranian people, deeming Pompeo’s May 21 statement as “baseless and insulting.”
He “issued a number of demands of and threats against Iran in brazen contravention of international law, well-established international norms and civilized behavior,” added the minister in his article that was published in Persian and English by several Iranian outlets.
He also accused Pompeo and his diplomatic team of taking “an irrational” and “contradictory” decision in an attempt to justify the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, describing the US official’s demands as “preposterous.”
Pompeo’s strategy, said Zarif, reflects his lack of even “a slight knowledge of Iran’s history and culture and the Iranian people’s struggle for independence and freedom.”
Furthermore, he stressed that the US administration must abandon its current policy in order to end its isolation in the international community, remarking, however, that this appears unrealistic at the moment.
Pompeo “should also be aware that in the past 40 years the Iranian people have heroically resisted and foiled aggressions and pressures by the US, including its coup attempts, military interventions ... and imposition of unilateral, extraterritorial and even multilateral sanctions.”
Zarif highlighted the contradictory statements made by US President Donald Trump in Singapore last week in which he called for resolving disputes between Washington and Tehran, while still insisting on imposing the strictest of sanctions against Iran.
The minister claimed at the end of his article that his country had “has for years promoted inclusion, multi-lateralism, dialogue, respect for the rule of law and nuclear disarmament.”
Zarif attacked US foreign policy, saying that it has widened the gap between it and its allies in the European Union and increased its isolation on the world stage.
His 15 conditions included a demand for the US government “to respect Iran’s independence and national sovereignty and assure Iran that it will end its intervention in Iran’s domestic affairs.”
“The US must abandon its policy of resorting to the threat or use of force ... as an option in the conduct of its foreign affairs … It should openly acknowledge its unwarranted and unlawful actions against the people of Iran over the past decades, including take remedial measures to compensate the people of Iran for the damages incurred, and provide verifiable assurances that it will cease and desist from such illegal measures and refrain from ever repeating them.”
“The US government must cease its persistent economic aggression against the Iranian people which has continued over the past four decades … It should immediately cease its violations and breaches of the Iran nuclear deal … and release all Iranians and non-Iranians who are detained under cruel conditions in the US under fabricated charges related to the alleged violation of sanctions.”
Moreover, Zarif demanded that the US change its regional policy, stop supporting Israel and vow before the international community to fulfill all of its pledges.
The Iranian official acknowledged, however, that “it is not realistic to harbor a hope for such a change in US behavior.”
Shortly after the publication of the article, Pompeo posted a series of tweets in response, saying: “Iran’s corrupt regime has enriched the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and Hamas, and plundered the country’s wealth on proxy wars abroad while Iranian families struggle.”
He also noted that 5,000 Iranians were arrested in January’s protests. “Thirty women jailed for protesting the hijab. Hundreds of Sufi dervishes, dozens of environmentalists, 400 Ahwazis, 30 Isfahan farmers – all imprisoned by Iran’s criminal regime. Iranian people deserve respect for their human rights.”
