Iran wishes for no war but will stand up to US pressure

Speaking to BBC’s ‘Business Matter’ on Friday, Iran’s ambassador to London, Hamid Baiedinejad, explained why has Iran put a 60-day ultimatum on the nuclear agreement for the remaining sides to the deal.

“Iran has been very faithfully implementing its obligations under the nuclear deal and the only expectation that we had was that other parties would also implement their shares of commitments. Unfortunately, [the lack of commitment] has been damaging the credibility of the nuclear deal.”

He voiced regret over US’ "unnecessary actions and provocations", such as the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, saying Iran only wishes to rectify the shortcomings of the situation by suspending a portion of its commitments under the deal.

Is Iran in a position to deal with the threat of a war with the US? The Iranian envoy responded that “we have taken our steps very cautiously that now we have all the Iranian nation behind the position of the government.”

“We gave sufficient ample time to our European partners to rectify the problems…because we have not been receiving the necessary advantages defined in the nuclear deal in terms of economy and trade relations.”

He went on to add, “our people believe that Iran has been doing its best. We believe that if we do not act properly, the JCPOA would be in total collapse. We feel that we should act now.”

“If the US wants to provoke further unnecessarily, we have our determination to face the US,” the Iranian diplomat stressed.

“We are not advocating to start a problem or conflict, but I assure you that all our people are ready to stand against the US and pay for the resistance,” he added.

If this two-month period proved to be ineffective in resolving the issue, “we would start our next steps, which I assure you, will be within the boundary of the JCPOA. We are not deciding, at this moment, to withdraw from the deal, which of course is among our options we’d be studying, but at this moment, we have decided to use the parameters in the JCPOA as measures that we can further encourage our partners to implement their shares of commitments. “

Can Iran sustain its economy in the face of so much pressure from the US? Baeidinejad said that “we can do a lot more, because we have a great economy and great resources in our country. This is the time that we can turn the challenges into opportunities. We can reduce our reliance on oil export, and see what we can do in other areas.”

He dismissed the idea that Iran is an oil economy, saying “only 30% of our budget is reliant on oil.” 

There has been a "silent revolution" in Iran's economy, said the envoy, noting that Iran has been reducing its reliance on outside revenues in the face of tremendous pressure from the outside.

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