Iran FM Says His Phone Tapped during Nuclear Talks

In a Farsi interview with the Persian-language Jame Jam newspaper, the top diplomat said his mobile phone grew hot during the talks, indicating his device was being tapped. The highlights of the interview follow:

• I don’t use VPN apps. Due to its duties and responsibilities, the Foreign Ministry has special Internet facilities. Naturally, using VPN applications is coupled with security threats. Sometimes we ask how many spy agencies are seeking to encroach upon our system. In fact, we take spying for granted and focus on the number of times that spying attempts are made. When nuclear talks were underway, my mobile phone was as hot as an iron on some days during the negotiations, and other negotiators share the same problem. Such events show a lot of efforts are being made to spy on our domestic issues.
• I do all my Twitter and Instagram postings myself. It’s been a long time I haven’t used the Facebook. I spend a long time, not continuously of course, on posting tweets. Between two to three hours for each tweet, on average.
• If you read the JCPOA carefully, you will find out that it is drawn up based on mutual pessimism because an agreement written based on optimism wouldn’t be so voluminous.
• We believe what has kept the US from pulling out of the JCPOA is not the country’s interest in the agreement, but fear of international isolation.
• Iran’s regional and defence policy are completely defensible, and we bravely announce this policy in all international arenas. Today, we (Iran) have the least amount of arms costs in the region. This is while member states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ran a total $116 billion worth of weapons spending, but the figure was less than $16billion for Iran.