Raisi: No trust in US; only guarantees and good, fair deal works

By Al-Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies & Al-Mayadeen
19 Sep 12:06
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Iranian President Raisi accuses the US of breaking promises and slams reaching an agreement, without a guarantee, as "meaningless".

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

After accusing the Americans of breaking their promises, the Iranian President said that today reaching an agreement, without a guarantee, is meaningless.

"If it's a good deal and fair deal, we would be serious about reaching an agreement," the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated in an interview with CBS News on the 60-minute show, addressing the potential revival of the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna.

President Raisi added, "It needs to be lasting. There needs to be guarantees. If there were a guarantee, then the Americans could not withdraw from the deal," while underlining that it was the US under Trump that broke its promises and unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA. "Now making promises is becoming meaningless," he stressed.

"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."

The President also attacked sanctions against Iran, describing them as tyrannical. "This is tyranny against the people of Iran," he declared, stressing that "it is important to us to have the sanctions lifted."

Raisi ensured that American sanctions will become ineffective as the list of sanctioned countries is growing, which is "bringing them closer together, and making them more united."

The President affirmed that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, denouncing Western claims that Tehran aims to build nuclear weapons as baseless and stating that Iran has responded to such claims numerously. "Possessing nuclear weapons has no place in our doctrine," he said, adding that Iran's nuclear program will be used in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and energy.

He announced in the interview that Iran told the US that the case of 4 Iranian nationals imprisoned in the US can be discussed between both countries away from the nuclear talks, saying, "These people are only in there because they simply tried to circumvent sanctions."

"It is a humanitarian issue. This can be negotiated," he stressed.

"We want justice to be served, We are not going to forget about this," President Raisi announced when asked about Iran's retaliation to the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. "What the then American government did, by the direct order of Trump himself, to assassinate General Qassem Soleimani, this was a heinous crime."

Raisi also ruled out meeting with US President in New York on the sidelines of UNGA, "No. I don't think that such a meeting would happen. I don't believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial."

It is worth recalling that the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers back in May 2018 under Trump's presidential term, after which he revived sanctions on Iran as part of the “maximum pressure” campaign he launched against the country and which Biden continues to impose. His administration, however, has repeatedly admitted that the policy has been a mistake and a failure.

At the beginning of his presidential campaign, Biden voiced his intentions to bring the US back into the deal but there has been no sign of that, and the US has even imposed more sanctions on Iran, such as the latest concerning Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its Minister Esmail Khatib, after the US accused Tehran of being behind a cyberattack against NATO ally Albania, which Iran denied.