Iran Cautions Europe of Vital Role in Maintaining Int'l Peace

TEHRAN (Defapress)-Iran on Saturday warned of the US dangerous moves against the international development, stressing the European states' important role in the promotion of peace in the world."Europe can lead the world towards peace or it can help war and insecurity in the world with a mistake or inadequate efforts," Iranian Road Minister Abbas Akhoundi said, addressing the Iran-Europe Banking Forum in Tehran today.

 He said that clearly the US approaches don’t lead to international development and many European experts have warned about it, adding, "If the system pursued by the US makes the conditions more insecure, certainly Europe's interests will be damaged."

His remarks came as Iran has several times in the past weeks called on the European states to put pressure on US President Donald Trump to maintain the 2015 nuclear deal, warning of Tehran's powerful response to the abrogation of the internationally-endorsed agreement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in New York last Saturday that resumption of uranium enrichment would be Tehran's "probable" response to a possible US withdrawal from the deal.

"America never should have feared Iran producing a nuclear bomb, but we will pursue vigorously our nuclear enrichment," he said.

Zarif also urged European leaders to press Trump to abide by the JCPOA, stressing that offering concessions to the US president would prove futile.

"To try to appease the president, I think, would be an exercise in futility," he said.

The Iranian foreign minister also hit out at the Trump administration for having "done everything it could to prevent Iran from benefiting from this agreement," warning that the Islamic Republic is "unlikely" to stick to the JCPOA if the US pulls out of it.

"It is important for Iran to receive the benefits of the agreement and there is no way that Iran would do a one-sided implementation of the agreement," he added.

A possible US withdrawal from the Iran deal would send a message to all governments "that you should never come to an agreement with the United States, because at the end of the day, the operating principle for the United States is, what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable," Zarif pointed out.
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