Zarif Repeats Iran’s Offer on Non-Aggression Pact with Arab Countries

By Staff, Agencies

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran offered to sign non-aggression agreements with all countries in the Gulf region and those offers are still on the table.

At a press conference alongside his Iraqi counterpart, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, in Baghdad on Sunday, Zarif also said that Iran sought the best of relations with the Gulf littoral countries and would welcome any proposals for dialog and de-escalation toward that end.

He added that Tehran would, however, forcefully confront any attempts at waging a military or economic campaign against the country.

The US has been escalating tensions with Iran since May 2018, when President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran that also involves Europe and Russia and China.

In an attempted campaign of “maximum pressure,” the US has imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic as well as on countries that seek to do business with it.

Zarif said the US was “bullying other countries into compliance with its unilateral measures” against Iran, which he said was an unlawful act.

He also referred to the European signatories to the Iran deal and said those countries, too, were in practical violation of the agreement by failing to normalize relations with Iran, as the agreement stipulated.

The European violations of the deal, he said, have increased over the past year.

In response to the American and European non-performance of the deal, Iran partially suspended its commitments in May.

Zarif said that the suspension did not equate an Iranian withdrawal.

For his part, Alhakim voiced Baghdad’s opposition to America’s unilateral measures against Iran.

“Economic sanctions are of no effect,” he said, adding that Iraq would stand by Iran’s side.

Alhakim also said Iraq was in contact with all regional countries to defuse tensions.