Iran's Zarif says he hopes Trump will choose 'rationality'

Ahram Online , Wednesday 22 Jan 2025

Iran hopes US President Donald Trump will choose "rationality" in dealing with the Islamic Republic, Iran's Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday, adding Tehran had never sought nuclear weapons.

Javad Zarif
File Photo: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. AFP

 

Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zarif said Iran did not threaten world security.

"I hope that this time around, a 'Trump 2' will be more serious, more focused, more realistic," Zarif said, according to Reuters.

Despite stressing that Tehran was not interested in actually manufacturing nuclear weapons, he noted, nonetheless, that the US's withdrawal from the nuclear deal had left Iran closer to obtaining a nuclear bomb.

Zarif, in his first remarks outside Iran since his country's election of a reformist government, said the continuation of US sanctions was hitting the most vulnerable in Iran hardest and insisted Iran did not want to become a nuclear power. "If we wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we could have done so a long time ago," Zarif said.

Speaking on Iran's support of resistance groups in the region, such as Hamas in Gaza, he said: "There'll be more groups, with or without Iran's help. Iran has always supported people's struggle for their human rights and self-determination, and we'll continue to support that."

The groups' resistance stemmed from the injustice suffered by Palestinians and not Iranian interference, he said.

Zarif said, however, that Iran was not aware of Hamas's resistance operation against Israel on 7 October 2023. "We didn't know … We were set to meet the Americans on JCPOA [the Iran nuclear deal] renewal on 9 October, but the operation destroyed it", the Guardian quoted Zarif as saying.

The nuclear deal (2015) was designed to ensure UN inspectors had access to Iran's nuclear sites to certify that Iran's nuclear programme was solely for civilian energy purposes.

However, Trump left the deal in 2018, opting to impose harsh sanctions on Iran. He has, however, been opaque about whether he will now try to strengthen those sanctions or endorse Israeli attacks on Iran.

Marco Rubio, the new US secretary of state, had acknowledged divisions in Tehran about whether a new deal with the US on its nuclear programme was desirable.

In his address in Davos, Zarif admitted such divisions, adding: "Iran is not a single voice, a uni-voice society. We have many voices and many views, and we cannot shut them down."

It is unclear if the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thinks lifting US sanctions, which requires difficult concessions, is necessary. In a speech on Wednesday, Khamenei said it was realistic for Iran to achieve 8 percent annual growth.

However, some believe that Iran has been significantly weakened as a result of the assassination of resistance leaders in Gaza and Lebanon, the fall of Al-Assad's regime in Syria, and Israel's occupation of parts of Syrian land. They see such a weakness as an opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear sites.

A decision on whether to renew the deal is unavoidable since the key clauses in the original 2015 deal are due to expire in October.

The head of the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, said Iran was pressing the gas pedal on uranium enrichment. Grossi said: "Before it was [producing] more or less 7kg [of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent] per month, now it's above 30 or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration." He added that Iran had about 200kg of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent.

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