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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the Biden administration is no different than the Trump administration, and it is responsible for the Iranian COVID-19 deaths, because it is upholding sanctions and preventing Iran from obtaining food, medicine, and COVID vaccines. He made these remarks in an interview with Iran's official English language broadcaster Press TV, which aired on February 21, 2021. Zarif said that once sanctions are lifted by the U.S., it would be able to return to the JCPOA and reparations could be discussed, adding that Iran has incurred a trillion dollars in losses due to sanctions since 2018. Zarif emphasized that Iran would not accept an American return to the nuclear deal before it removes all of its sanctions on Iran, and that it would not negotiate any changes or additions to the deal, such as its missile program or regional influence. He added that Iran is well within its rights according to the JCPOA to reduce its commitments, to increase uranium enrichment, and to stop transfer of video surveillance of its nuclear installations to the IAEA, since the Americans violated the agreement by leaving it.
Zarif accused the IAEA of leaking information about Iran's nuclear program, and said that for Iran, whose "peaceful" nuclear installations have been attacked and whose scientists, such as Fakhrizade, have been murdered, confidentiality is essential. He said that the U.S. is "addicted" to sanctions, pressure, and bullying, but they should accept that with Iran, this does not work. Zarif continued to say that since the American withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran's enriched uranium stockpile has multiplied by more than 10 times, and it now also has dozens of kilogram of 20%-enriched uranium.
Javad Zarif: "The United States withdrew from the JCPOA, violated security resolutions, and basically punished anybody who tried to upset international law. The EU, particularly the three countries, the UK, France and Germany, did not do anything to implement their own obligations.
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"So we started these measures in line with JCPOA. We are not violating JCPOA. We are implementing the remedial measures foreseen in the JCPOA itself.
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"There has been a report in the Guardian that Israel has been expanding Dimona. You know that Dimona is the only, the only nuclear weapon bomb factory in the Middle East. No other nuclear weapon factory.
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"Israel is not a member of NPT. It's proliferator number 1 in the world. Nobody even catches Israel in terms of proliferation. It's aggressor number one in the world. It's occupier number one in the world. It is the user of violent of force number one in the world. It's violator of human rights number one in the world and nobody cares.
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"It's a peaceful program. We had agreed to additional measures of monitoring. In order to implement an agreement which had to pillars: Iran showing that it did not have intent to develop nuclear weapons and the West normalizing Iran's economic relations with the world.
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"Sanctions were lifted on paper, but the objective was to keep the sanctions that were not lifted in order to lift the sanctions obligations. This was the problem during the Obama administration. This was the problem during the Trump administration. They were out in the open trying to torpedo the agreement, and then they finally left the agreement. We need to, and we have said it very clearly, that once everybody implements their part of the obligation, then there will be talks. And those talks will not be about changing the agreement or adding to the agreement because all of the issues have been discussed. The timeframes, they call it sunset, but these are timeframes. These are regional issues, missile issues, all of them have been discussed and addressed so we are not going to discuss those. But we are going to discuss how we can avoid and guarantee the actions by the United States will not be repeated.
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"IAA will certainty not get footage from those cameras. In the past they would get them automatically – not online but automatically, but now it is clear that they will not get the footage as long as the United States does not come back to implementation of its agreement.
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"We just saw that the IAA is not officially releasing but leaking information that is supposed to be confidential. Anything between us and the IAA, based on IAA statue, should remain confidential. Confidentiality is a requirement, otherwise no country would allow IAA to inspect their sites. Some of them may have security implications for Iran, whose peaceful nuclear sites have been attacked, most recently in Natanz and in other places. For a country whose nuclear scientists have been murdered in terrorist operations in the past and now recently with Mr. Fakhrizadeh, the confidentiality is essential.
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"The problem in the United States and it doesn't matter with which administration, the Islamic Republic has dealt with seven consecutive US presidents, and I have delt with almost five of them, and the problem is, the US is addicted to sanctions. US is addicted to pressure. US is addicted to bullying. And time and again – it may work some other places – it doesn't work in a country with a millennia of history. Not just a millennium, millennia of history.
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"They should accept that with Iran, bullying doesn't work. Pressure doesn't work. Maximum pressure according to them, led to maximum failure.
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"Compensation is going to be a part of our conversations after US return to JCPOA. We have lost about a thousand billion dollars, a trillion dollars, directly and indirectly because of the position on US sanctions since 2018.
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"My problem is that President Biden is pursuing the same policy, not Obama policy. He is pursuing Trump policy. He has not allowed Iran to purchase food and medicine.
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"President Biden, his treasury secretary, his secretary of state are responsible for the fact that the Iranian people are dying from COVID. Cannot get the vaccine; cannot get the medicine.
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When President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA we had 300 kilograms of enriched uranium. When President Biden came to office, we had 3800 kilograms of enriched uranium. Today, probably we have 4000 kilograms. In May/June, probably we will have about 5000 kilograms. When President Biden came to office, we had no 20% enriched, today we have 22 kilograms of 20% enriched. In two months, we will have 42 kilograms, 52 kilograms. We are not threatening anybody. We are simply exercising the remedial measures foreseen in the JCPOA.
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"It's not nuclear extortion. What you are engaged in is extortion. You are extorting our money, our own money. We are simply implementing our right.
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"We got what we wanted out of JCPOA. End of security council resolutions, end of US lies about our nuclear program. They deprived Iran of our right to enriched Uranium. Now, they have recognized Iran's right to enrich Uranium in a security resolution.
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"The United States must know that Iran got what it needed from JCPOA. We have the right within JCPOA not to upset anything. It says, if they do not observe we have the right to stop totally or partially. We are still in the partial phase. We can be total. We are still in the partial phase.
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"Our Arab neighbors believe in buying security.
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"You tried so hard to bring Trump to fight your war for you. That is to fight with Iran. They wanted to fight with Iran until the last American soldier. Did Trump fight Iran? He's now gone. Now you go to Israel. You believe – does UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain believe that Netanyahu who cannot prevent himself from going to prison can protect them? This mentality that you can buy security from the outside must end. It doesn't work. Netanyahu – the only thing Netanyahu will do for you is bring the war to your territory, instead of protecting you from war. We don't intend to have war from you.
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"Iran is ready, without precondition to sit down and talk to all of them."
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