Iran on Saturday urged US President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider the “maximum pressure” policy he pursued against Tehran during his first term in office. This was reported by the AFP agency quoted by TASR.
Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, who previously served as foreign minister and helped seal the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and Western powers including the United States, made the announcement to reporters in Tehran.
Zarif also claims that it was Trump’s political approach to Tehran that led Iran to increase its level of uranium enrichment.
“He must realize that the policy of maximum pressure that he initiated has caused the enrichment of uranium in Iran to reach 60 percent – from 3.5 percent,” Zarif recalled.
An Iranian spokesman urged Trump to weigh the pros and cons of his policy toward Iran
“As a result-oriented man, he should calculate and find out what the advantages and disadvantages of this policy are, and whether he wants to continue or change this harmful policy,” urged Zaríf.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai also expressed hope on Thursday that the return of the president-elect to the White House will allow Washington to “revise the wrong approaches of the past” – AFP noted that the spokesman did not mention Trump’s name in this statement.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday – the day of the US presidential election – that he “doesn’t intend to do any damage to Iran”. He added that his “conditions are very simple: They cannot have a nuclear weapon”. He stated that he would like Iran to become a very successful country.
Trump’s victory in the presidential election comes shortly after Iran launched direct attacks on its arch-enemy – Israel, which responded with retaliatory military operations. This escalation raises concerns about the spread of the current conflicts in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Lebanon to other areas of the Middle East.
