Joe Biden does not seduce Tehran.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused the US President, Saturday, August 28, of having the "same" demands vis-à-vis Tehran as his predecessor Donald Trump on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Ayatollah Khamenei made these remarks while Westerners, Russians and Chinese have been waiting since the end of June for a sign of Tehran's willingness to resume discussions started in Vienna in April to try to save the international Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015 , torpedoed in 2018 by Donald Trump.
"Americans have no real shame"
“The current US government is no different from the previous one because what it demands of Iran on the nuclear issue is, in different words, the same as what Trump demanded,” Ali Khamenei said in a speech excerpts from which have been published on its official website.
"On the nuclear issue, the Americans are really not ashamed: even though they withdrew (from the Vienna agreement) in full view, they are now talking and pushing through demands as if it were the Islamic Republic which had withdrawn "from this pact, he added.
The Iranian number one made the remarks during a meeting with the new Iranian government of President Ebrahim Raïssi.
Ebrahim Raïssi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rohani in early August - the main architect, Iranian side, of the 2015 agreement - after winning the June 18 election marked by record abstention and the absence of real competitors.
People's confidence is "the greatest asset" a government has, but it "has unfortunately been damaged somewhat" and "you must restore it," Ayatollah Khamenei told Ebrahim Raïssi and his ministers.
>> To read also: "Iran: many challenges but little room for maneuver for the new president"
Concluded in Vienna, the 2015 agreement offers Iran relief from Western and UN sanctions in exchange for its commitment never to acquire atomic weapons, and a drastic reduction in its nuclear program, placed under strict UN control.
But it has been threatening to shatter since Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of it in 2018 before reinstating the American sanctions against Iran that the agreement had lifted.
In response, Iran gradually abandoned from the following year most of the safeguards to its nuclear activities that it had accepted in the agreement.
Joe Biden says he wants to bring Washington back into the fold of the agreement, and the discussions opened in April aim to allow this reinstatement.
The last session took place at the end of June with representatives of the Iranian government leaving Hassan Rouhani.
With AFP
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