Speaking to reporters at a weekly press conference on Monday, Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed reports about Iran’s demand that the US government must give a guarantee that it will not pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action again.
“The details could not be publicized. The US has once shown during Trump’s tenure that it can ignore the interests of nations in a defiant manner,” he said.
“The US must give a guarantee” before returning to the JCPOA, Khatibzadeh added, noting that details of the request will be made public later.
He also categorically rejected the idea of negotiations on a new JCPOA, stressing also that Tehran has never linked a deal to specific individuals.
“A revival of the JCPOA hinges on the removal of all of the sanctions cited in the JCPOA. We won’t approve of anything less or more than the JCPOA,” the spokesman underscored.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and six world states —the US, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China— and was ratified in the form of Resolution 2231.
However, former US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and reinstated the sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.
In May 2019, Iran began to scale back its JCPOA commitments after the remaining European parties failed to fulfill their end of the bargain and compensate for Washington’s absence.
In remarks on February 7, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said Iran will resume honoring the JCPOA in full only after the US has removed all sanctions on Tehran in a practical and verifiable manner.