Iran has once again made it clear that it has no intention of opening the negotiating table with the United States with regards to the 2015 nuclear deal which the Trump administration has once bailed out from, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
Zarif, who recently spoke at an international conference in Rome, said that despite the demands from Washington for Tehran to reopen the negotiations, Iran would rather endure the US economic sanctions than to answer the call, a report from Reuters indicated.
The Iranian top diplomat reiterated that any negotiations with Trump, including the one that promises to salvage the nulled 2015 Nuclear Deal, are pointless because the head of the Western world cannot be trusted, an Iranian-based news agency added.
August of this year, the White House released a statement confirming Trump's invitation for a dialogue with Iran. This happened in the midst of the implementation of the two-fold economic sanctions that hit the Islamic country: first on that month, and second on November.
As quoted in a report from the Business Times, Trump's statement indicated that the US government is willing to make a deal with the Iranian regime with regards to its purported malign activities in the Gulf region, including its on-going ballistic missile development program as well as its alleged support on terrorism in the area.
This tension between Washington and Tehran comes at the heel of Trump's decision to back out from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May, a move that Iran's President Rouhani considered as uncalled for and immature.
The deal, which was originally signed with the members of the United Nations including the United States, calls for the oil-producing country to delimit its nuclear weapon build-up while allowing representatives of international inspection agencies to take a look on its program.
In exchange, the UN and the US will lift the sanctions that formerly prohibit Iran from participating in global market activities. The sanctions have since been crippling Iran's economy.
The American head of state, however, changed cadence when unsubstantiated intelligence reports reached the Oval Office indicating Iran's alleged violation of the nuclear accord.
Washington then demanded Tehran to fully abandon its weapons program. Obviously, this didn't bode well with Iran.
In his speech, Zarif stressed the importance of requiring a guarantee from the US before Tehran will consider re-entering in the negotiation panel.
Meanwhile, the other signatories of the JCPOA are now brewing up plans to launch a special payment system that would enable European countries such as Germany and France, to continue trading with Iran, despite the stern warnings of the US.
