Iran Uses Field, Diplomacy ’Proportionally’ To Protect National Interests - Shamkhani

By Staff, Agencies

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani said the Islamic Republic makes proportionate use of both "field and diplomacy" as components of its power to safeguard its security and national interests.

"Field and Diplomacy - as two components of Iran's power - are used proportionally and judiciously to protect our security & national interests," Shamkhani said in a Sunday post on his Twitter account.

He added that 40 years of experience have taught the Iranian nation that national rights and security would never be guaranteed by "relying on Western or Eastern powers."

Shamkhani's tweet came a few hours after Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard [IRG] said it has carried out a retaliatory missile strike on the "strategic center of Zionist conspiracy and evil" in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan city of Erbil.

Shamkhani's tweet also referred to Iran's use of diplomacy in eight rounds of talks with the P4+1 group of countries on a possible revival of the landmark 2015 deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], which was abandoned by the US three years after its conclusion.

The US unilaterally left the JCPOA in 2018, and restored the sanctions that had been lifted under the accord. Washington’s European allies in the deal—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—have been toeing the sanctions line closely by ending their trade activities with Iran.

Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA —Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have been engaging in the eighth round of the talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna since last April on the assumption that the US, under the administration of Joe Biden, is willing to repeal the so-called maximum pressure policy pursued by former president, Donald Trump, against Tehran.

Iran says it won’t settle for anything less than the removal of all US sanctions in a verifiable manner. It also wants guarantees that Washington would not abandon the agreement again.

Iran and the P4+1 group of countries on Friday announced a pause in the Vienna talks, with Tehran saying that all relevant parties will concentrate on a “successful conclusion” of the diplomatic process.