Iran Stayed in JCPOA to Have US Sanctions Lifted: Official

Mahmoud Vaezi, the chief of staff of the Iranian president’s office, said Tehran remained in the JCPOA to secure the Iranian nation’s rights as well.

“The Iranian government knew from the outset that it should not play in the United States’ court in order to both disgrace the US politically in the world and allow us to do our job,” he said.

“Since Trump came to power, the US had been seeking to make Iran pull out of the JCPOA by exerting different types of pressure on the country,” said Vaezi.

“To that end, the US first pressured the Europeans into not fulfilling their JCPOA commitments. Finally, when the Americans failed to achieve all of their objectives, the US itself withdrew from the JCPOA,” he added.

“The United States pulled out of the JCPOA, hoping that Iran would immediately follow suit,” said Vaezi.

“But based our analysis and understanding of the world, we didn’t get involved in that game,” Vaezi noted.

He underlined that Iran scaled down its obligations under the JCPOA in five stages at two-month intervals, but, at the same time, preserved the agreement.

“We maintained the JCPOA in case global conditions changed, so that we would be able to try to restore our rights, i.e., the lifting of sanctions, and also to secure Iranians’ rights in other areas within the same framework,” he said.

“Accordingly, we did not pull out of the JCPOA. And today, we are seeing that the JCPOA provides good grounds for us to achieve our set goals in the short run,” he said.