A political commentator says the US imposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic well before the emergence of a standoff on Iran’s nuclear energy program.
“The point is that in the past the United States has imposed sanctions on Iran before the nuclear standoff,” Mohammad Marandi told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday.
“In the 1990s when the Iranians actually allowed an American oil company to exploit an oil field - Conoco, the United States slapped sanctions on Iran,” he said.
He added that the US never wanted a resolution of Iran’s nuclear issue in order to “use it to put pressure on Iran.”
Marandi noted that the US sanctions on Iran “are not something linked to the nuclear program.”
“Basically the sanctions are linked to ‘regime change’ as Americans like to put it,” said Marandi.
He dismissed allegations of Tehran having been forced by sanctions into sitting at the negotiating table with the Western governments about its nuclear issue.
“The Iranians had already been negotiating before the recent sanctions and during the recent sanctions,” he said.
Marandi’s remarks come as Iran and six world powers are holding talks in Geneva. The talks, which started on Tuesday, are to end on Wednesday.
Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain - plus Germany held two rounds of talks on Tuesday. During the first round, Zarif presented Iran’s proposal titled “Closing an Unnecessary Crisis, and Opening New Horizons.”
The US, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

By PressTV

 

 

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