Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi announced his country's adherence to the guarantees it required to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement, while a US official said that reaching an agreement with Tehran seemed out of reach.

During a press conference in New York on Thursday, Raisi said that Iran will face the challenges it now faces unless it gets the guarantees it wants.

He added that these guarantees are caused by previous actions of Washington and the unilateral measures that it may take, saying that the actions of the current US administration are not different from its predecessor, and that the lifting of sanctions has not taken place so far.

"What concerns us is the lifting of sanctions, and if we agree to the agreement that they are talking about, we will be under threat," the Iranian president added.

Raisi spoke at the press conference about internal and external issues, saying that Iran's policy is not to live under the domination of any power, and that it is ready to cooperate with other countries.

He expressed Tehran's readiness to play a mediating role in order to end the war in Ukraine, noting that his country is seeking to strengthen its relations with Russia.

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Iranian president said - in a speech to a number of experts and foreign policy specialists in New York - that his country agreed to negotiate over its nuclear program in order to reach a logical and just agreement, not to negotiate for the sake of negotiation.

Raisi added that the complex of negotiations must be resolved by the parties that held them, noting that Iran is seeking real guarantees so that the scenario of the United States withdrawing from the nuclear agreement does not happen again.


far agreement

Meanwhile, the Coordinator of External Communications at the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said - in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera - that the US administration is far from returning to the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Kirby reiterated his country's determination to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Before that, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Iran's response to the European Union's draft to revive the nuclear deal was not constructive.

He added - in an interview with Al Jazeera - that Washington believes that mutual compliance with the nuclear agreement is still possible, noting that it will continue to consult with its European partners, and take measures in response to what Tehran is doing in the region, as he put it.

While the European Union's external relations coordinator, Josep Borrell, said that negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement had reached a dead end, Washington made it clear that the door had not yet been closed to reaching an agreement.

For his part, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said that the agency has no information that Iran will have a nuclear weapons program.

Grossi added that it is necessary for the Iranian side to cooperate so that the International Atomic Energy Agency can inspect at the required level.