Exclusive Interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I start by asking you about the — I guess the warning from the U.S. that your country is now or could be just weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon? What do you say about that?

MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, I think that is a statement of concern that is more addressed to the public opinion than to reality. Iran does not seek a nuclear weapon. If we wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we could have done it some time ago. But we decided that nuclear weapons are not — will not augment our security and are in contradiction to our ideological views. And that is why we never pursued nuclear weapons. But it is true that — that the time for the United States to come back to the nuclear weapon — to the nuclear agreement is not unlimited. The United States has a limited window of opportunity, because President Biden does not want to portray himself as trying to take advantage of the failed policies of the former Trump administration.

AMANPOUR: As you know, President Biden, even when he was a candidate, before the election, he laid out his strategy, his foreign policy, and the aim of getting back into the JCPOA. This is what he said. He said in September: “I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal’s provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern.” There’s a lot in there. Is that a deal Iran could take up?

ZARIF: Well, you see, first of all, the United States needs to establish its bona fides to come back to the nuclear deal. The United States is not in the nuclear deal. And it’s not in the nuclear deal because of its own decision to withdrawal, without taking the routes that were available to it within the nuclear agreement. On the other hand, Iran used the mechanisms in the nuclear agreement in order to limit its cooperation. If you read paragraph 36, we acted in strict accordance with the — with the nuclear agreement. Now, the United States needs to come back into compliance, and Iran will be ready immediately to respond. The timing is not the issue.