Kharrazi's account of the more than 20-year history of promising to lift sanctions in exchange for suspending nuclear enrichment

  The head of the Strategic Council of Foreign Relations in a detailed interview with the website of the information database of the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of the Leader of the Islamic Republic:

The Islamic Republic has never run away from diplomacy and negotiation.  During Mr. Khatami's government, nuclear negotiations with the Europeans started and the negotiations were progressing, but they were extravagant.  In Saadabad, when they came, they had a meeting with Mr. Rouhani and negotiated, and they said that you should suspend the enrichment so that we reach a mutually acceptable result.

Well, we suspended, but they said we have to get an objective guarantee that you are not looking for nuclear weapons.  We said we also want a firm guarantee that you will lift the sanctions;  But in practice, they were not ready to lift the sanctions and only wanted this suspension to be turned into a permanent stop.

Therefore, in the last days of Mr. Khatami's presidency, the suspension was broken;  Because they saw that the continuation of this work would lead nowhere and they simply wanted to impose a stop on enrichment on Iran.

In Mr. Khatami's government, everyone came to the conclusion that the continuation of this work will not really go anywhere and will only cause the rights of the Islamic Republic to be violated.  Therefore, they broke the suspension, launched the UCF nuclear facilities in Isfahan, and in this way, a new phase began, because the honor of the Islamic Republic demanded that we not be subjected to force or their political games.

In the following periods, because it was felt that there was a preparation for a real negotiation, the JCPOA negotiations were conducted in Mr. Rouhani's government and reached results, but in practice, we saw that the Americans did not cooperate from the beginning and then withdrew from the negotiations during the Trump era, and the Europeans did not fulfill their commitments.

These show that although we should not run away from negotiations and should be at the negotiating table, we should also be careful not to impose anything on us and if they want to impose, we should stand up against it.  The same process was followed in the recent encounters with the Europeans;  We were ready to negotiate, but they wanted to impose on us.

They made three conditions to delay Snapback by six months by fulfilling those three conditions;  Even in this field, we showed flexibility, but they were not ready to accept these things.

If the negotiation is based on logical principles and the honor of the Islamic Republic is respected, we are ready to negotiate;  We are ready to negotiate now, provided that the principles governing the negotiation are respected.