Threats have never worked against Iran; US to blame for JCPOA state: Spokesman

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the use of threats against the country has never worked and what the United States refers to as options against Tehran have already resulted in Washington's “catastrophic” defeats in the region and across the world.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, made the remark in a tweet on Tuesday after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Washington would turn to “other options” if diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program fails.

“Threats have never worked against Iran,” Khatibzadeh wrote. “The supposed US ‘options’ have already been tested in our region. Resulting catastrophic US defeats & the mess left for others to address are evident for all to see.”

The most recent case in point was the hasty withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August after a two-decade-long invasion of the war-torn country.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan on the pretext of the so-called war on terror removed the Taliban from power 20 years ago, but it worsened the security situation in the country.

The invasion claimed thousands of lives and left as many injured on both sides.

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The Foreign Ministry spokesman also stressed that the US administration is to blame for the current state of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“As main culprit behind current state of JCPOA, US should embrace lessons,” Khatibzadeh added.

Iran and six world powers, including the US, France, Britain, Russia and China plus Germany, inked the JCPOA in July 2015. The agreement removed international sanctions on Iran in exchange for certain limits on Iran’s nuclear activities.

The deal, however, was unilaterally abandoned by the US under former President Donald Trump in 2018 despite Iran’s full compliance with its nuclear undertakings, as repeatedly certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US then unleashed a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran which practically deprived the country of all of the deal’s economic benefits.

Iran fully honored its nuclear obligations for an entire year, after which it decided to ramp up its nuclear work as a legal “remedial measure” against the US violation of the deal and the abject failure on the part of the other signatories, the E3 in particular, to safeguard its benefits.

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Iran’s envoy to talks aimed at potential removal of US sanctions says the Islamic Republic is to rejoin the negotiations before November’s end.

Back in April, Iran and the remaining parties to the landmark nuclear deal began negotiations to restore the deal. The talks were paused in late June, after Iran’s presidential election, but Iran announced on Wednesday that the talk to remove anti-Tehran sanctions will resume in November.

Since the beginning of the Vienna talks, Iran has frequently criticized the administration of US President Joe Biden for retaining his predecessor’s so-called maximum pressure policy even though publicly denouncing it as a complete failure which was responsible for the progress of Iran’s nuclear program beyond the JCPOA limits.

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