NEW YORK \u2014 Iran\u2019s top diplomat scolded President Donald Trump on Wednesday for a weekend tweet about a nonexistent Iranian missile launch and essentially ruled out renegotiating or launching follow-up talks to a landmark nuclear accord that Trump is threatening to dismantle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to check our facts before we make statements,\u201d Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cIt worries me that people play with facts and produce alternative facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also criticized a recent referendum on independence by Iraq\u2019s Kurdish minority as \u201cdangerous\u201d to stability in a Middle East already beset by efforts to defeat the Islamic State group and civil wars in Syria and Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Zarif seemed to float the possibility of a prisoner exchange for several detained Americans in Iran, responding to a question about their fate by raising the situation of several Iranians held or being pursued by the United States for sanctions violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the minister reserved his sharpest scorn for Trump, who on Saturday blasted Iran in a tweet that renewed criticism of its 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers including the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel,\u201d the president wrote. \u201cThey are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it turns out there was no Iranian ballistic missile launch, according to Zarif and U.S. officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s unclear where Trump got his information, but it apparently did not come from U.S. intelligence agencies, which keep a continuous lookout for missile launches around the globe. As president, Trump could easily have checked with the CIA or other intelligence agencies to verify whether Iran had actually test-fired a missile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif also declared the U.S. leader\u2019s newly extended travel ban restrictions on Iran to be \u201can insult to the entire Iranian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The restrictions, which go into effect Oct. 18, cover citizens of Iran, Chad, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen \u2014 and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. Iranians were also targeted in Trump\u2019s earlier bans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is unfortunate that for irrelevant political reasons the president of the United States decides to alienate … and antagonize an entire nation who have not harmed anybody,\u201d Zarif said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI believe that we need to respond to the measures that were taken by the United States in order to preserve the dignity of our citizens,\u201d he said, \u201cbut how we respond is a decision that we will make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Renegotiation \u2018myth\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding the seven-nation nuclear deal, Zarif rejected what he called the \u201cmyth\u201d that a renegotiation is possible \u2014 as argued by some in the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said Trump \u201cwould open a Pandora\u2019s box\u201d by trying to re-litigate the 2015 accord\u2019s time limits on various Iranian nuclear activities \u2014 which were the most intensively negotiated issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key limits on Iran\u2019s stockpiling of uranium and production of plutonium, both representing potential paths to a nuclear bomb, expire after 10 and 15 years. Trump and his top diplomat, Rex Tillerson, have argued that that amounts to a devastating flaw in the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that after that time Iran will be free to develop nuclear weapons,\u201d Zarif said. \u201cIran does not consider nuclear weapons to be in its strategic interest, and at the same time we\u2019ll be bound by international obligations not to develop nuclear weapons afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranian minister also ruled out a new agreement, as some U.S. and European officials have called for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to be realistic in our expectations,\u201d Zarif said. \u201cWe dealt with all these issues. It took us many years. It took us 10 years of posturing on all sides and two years of serious negotiations to reach this deal. I don\u2019t expect that a new round will produce any better results. In fact, a new round will get us in a quagmire that nobody will be able to get out of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has to decide by Oct. 15 whether to certify Iranian compliance with the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran and the five other parties \u2014 Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany \u2014 have been urging the United States not to pull out of the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif said that if the U.S. withdraws \u201cthen we\u2019re not bound by that agreement and we will then decide how we want to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt does not mean that Iran wants to pursue a nuclear weapons option,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what is important is if the deal is broken, then Iran has many options, one of which would be to have an unlimited yet peaceful nuclear energy program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On another persistent American demand, Zarif said there were no negotiations currently going on with the United States for the release of U.S. citizens being held in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately there are a large number of Iranians who have been detained by the United States, both in the United States as well as through the extradition request of the United States throughout the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThese people, including pregnant women, are in prison for technical violations of sanctions that no longer apply today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked if he was suggesting a prisoner exchange such as the one that took place under former President Barack Obama in 2016, he said: \u201cWell it happened once but what I\u2019m implying here is the application of double standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif was then asked whether the government would be open to a prisoner exchange. \u201cWell, I cannot predict the outcome of a negotiation that is not taking place right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kurdish independence<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turning to this week\u2019s Kurdish independence referendum in Iraq, Zarif said that Iran was opposed to the vote \u201clike every other nation in the world.\u201d According to official results of the nonbinding referendum announced Wednesday, 92 percent supported independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran has a large Kurdish minority along with Iraq, Turkey and Syria, and supporters of an independent state of Kurdistan have argued that Kurds from all four countries should be included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif called the Kurds \u201cour eternal friends,\u201d noting that Iran came to their assistance when they were fighting ISIS militants in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, he said, \u201cwe believe that this referendum is dangerous for stability in the region and doesn\u2019t serve the interest of our Iraqi Kurdish friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif also defended support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and suggested his country could intervene elsewhere in the Arab world to fight extremists. Critics, led by Saudi Arabia and Israel, say Iran is not focused on extremism but instead is using proxies such as Hezbollah and Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels to destabilize the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zarif said Iran has fought against \u201cextremists and terrorists\u201d starting in Afghanistan in the 1990s, in Iraq since 2003 and in Irbil. In Syria, he said, \u201cthe government and resistance forces have been able to achieve military victory over the terrorists … to a really important extent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf we need to go to the assistance of any other government in the region in order for them to fight extremists and terrorists, we are ready,\u201d Zarif said. \u201cThis is an open declaration that Iran is always on the side of those who fight extremism and terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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