Iran’s foreign minister warned the US on Monday that it
“cannot expect to stay safe” after launching what he described as an economic
war against Tehran, taking a hard-line stance amid a visit by Germany’s top
diplomat seeking to defuse tensions.
A stern-faced Mohammad Javad Zarif offered a series of
threats over the ongoing tensions gripping the Arabian Gulf. The crisis takes
root in President Donald Trump’s decision over a year ago to withdraw America
from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump also reinstated tough
sanctions on Iran, targeting its oil sector.
“Mr. Trump himself has announced that the US has launched an
economic war against Iran,” Zarif said. “The only solution for reducing
tensions in this region is stopping that economic war.”
Zarif also warned: “Whoever starts a war with us will not be
the one who finishes it.”
For his part, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted
his country and other European nations want to find a way to salvage the
nuclear deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for
the lifting of economic sanctions. But he acknowledged there were limits.
“We won’t be able to do miracles, but we are trying as best
as we can to do prevent its failure,” Maas said.
However, Europe has yet to be able to offer Iran a way to
get around the newly imposed US sanctions. Meanwhile, a July 7 deadline —
imposed by Iran — looms for Europe to find a way to save the unraveling deal.
Otherwise, Iran has warned it will resume enriching uranium
closer to weapons-grade levels.
Though Zarif made a point to shake Maas’ hands before the
cameras, his comments marked a sharp departure for the US-educated diplomat who
helped secure the nuclear deal, alongside the relatively moderate President
Hassan Rouhani. They came after Maas spoke about Israel, an archenemy of Iran’s
government.
“Israel’s right to exist is part of Germany’s founding
principle and is completely non-negotiable,” Maas said. “It is a result of our
history and it’s irrevocable and doesn’t just change because I am currently in
Tehran.”
Zarif then grew visibly angry, offering a list of Mideast
problems ranging from al-Qaeda to the bombing of Yemeni civilians he blamed on
the US and its allies, namely Saudi Arabia.
“If one seeks to talk about instability in this region,
those are the other parties who should be held responsible,” Zarif said.
Zarif’s sharp tone likely comes from Iran’s growing
frustration with Europe, as well as the ever-tightening American sanctions targeting
the country. Iran’s national currency, the rial, is currently trading at nearly
130,000 to $1. It had been 32,000 to the dollar at the time of the 2015 deal.
That has wiped away people’s earnings, as well as driven up prices on nearly
every good in the country.
European nations had pledged to create a mechanism called
INSTEX, which would allow Iran to continue to trade for humanitarian goods
despite American sanctions. However, that program has yet to really take off,
something Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman noted before Zarif and Maas spoke
to reporters.
“We haven’t put much hope in INSTEX,” spokesman Abbas
Mousavi said, according to Iranian state television. “If INSTEX was going to
help us, it would have done so already.”
Trump, in withdrawing from the deal, pointed that the accord
had not limited Iran’s ballistic missile program, or addressed what American
officials describe as Tehran’s malign influence across the wider Mideast.
Back when the deal was struck in 2015, it was described it
as a building block toward further negotiations with Iran, whose government has
had a tense relationship with America since the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy
in Tehran and subsequent hostage crisis.
Some members of Trump’s administration, particularly
National Security Adviser John Bolton, previously supported the overthrow of
Iran’s government. Trump, however, has stressed that he wants to talk with
Iran’s clerical rulers.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive in Tehran on
Wednesday as an interlocutor for Trump.
Japan had once purchased Iranian oil, but it has now stopped
over American sanctions. However, Mideast oil remains crucial to Japan and
recent threats from Iran to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth
through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes, has raised concerns.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Ali
Asghar Zarean, deputy head of Iran’s nuclear department, said Tehran had
increased the number of its centrifuges to 1,044 at the Fordo underground
facility.
Without elaborating on the model of centrifuges in Fordo,
Zarean added it was 720 centrifuges before the 2015 nuclear deal.
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali
Akbar Salehi, said last month that Iran had begun installing a chain of 20 IR-6
centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility. Iranian officials
say the IR-6 can enrich 10 times faster than an IR-1.
In late May, the UN nuclear watchdog said that “up to 33”
more advanced IR-6 centrifuges have been installed and that “technical
discussions in relation to the IR-6 centrifuges are ongoing.”
Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to test no
more than 30 of the IR-6s once the deal has been in place for 8 1/2 years. The
deal is murky about limits before that point, which will arrive in 2023.
A centrifuge is a device that enriches uranium by rapidly
spinning uranium hexafluoride gas. Under the atomic accord, Iran has been
limited to operating 5,060 older models of IR-1 centrifuges.
