JCPOA:

•        The nuclear deal was an example of non-zero-sum thinking.  Recognizing differences but also recognizing a common goal, and maintaining respect for the interests of all parties guided the difficult negotiations that led to the successful conclusion of the JCPOA.  And that may be why those who see everything in terms of one-sided profiteering are so intrinsically opposed to it.

•        There is an international consensus that destruction of the JCPOA or a change in it would be unacceptable and would be confronted by the international community

•        All parties, should remain committed to the JCPOA and implement the deal completely so that Iran does the same.

•        The Islamic Republic has repeatedly proved that it is committed to its international obligations and Tehran has numerous options on the future of the deal, which would protect the interests of the Iranian nation.

•        The European Union and European countries should undertake practical measures in defending the JCPOA in the face of destructive measures of US in addition to issuing supportive statements.

•        Everyone agrees it is imperative that ALL live up to their obligations under JCPOA. IAEA has verified Iran's full compliance, but continuation will depend on full US compliance.

•        Given the importance of JCPOA in these days and the destructive policies of the United States, Iran and EU agreed to hold advisory meetings between Iran and three European members.

•        Whenever Iran feels the other parties to the nuclear deal are not doing enough to secure Iran’s interests, we will take action.

•        One option is withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

•        US President Donald Trump is in no position to verify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal.

•        Regulations within the American government are not related to Tehran and the US must honour its international commitments under the agreement.

•        The American domestic regulations are not credible for us and the US is required to remain committed to its international commitments. The JCPOA is not an agreement between Iran and the US to need Congress certification.

•        The United States is isolating itself by its policies and the European Union’s concerns about the Trump administration’s behaviour which is not exclusively limited to the nuclear agreement and could cause trouble for the international order.

•        Trump’s failure to respect several other international deals such as the Paris Climate Accord, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) are among them.

•        Europe can defy US sanctions.

•        The only way Iran would be persuaded to continue to observe the limits on its civil nuclear programme would be if the other signatories – the UK, France Germany, Russia, China – all remained committed to its terms and defy any subsequent US sanctions. Europe should lead.

•        Trump has made a policy of being unpredictable, and now he’s turning that into being unreliable as well.

•        The deal allowed Iran to continue its research and development. So we have improved our technological base. If we decide to walk away from the deal we would be walking away with better technology. It will always be peaceful, because membership of the NPT is not dependent on this deal. But we will not observe the limitations that were agreed on as part of the bargain in this deal.

•        In a previous era of high tensions between Washington and Tehran – when the US adopted sanctions legislation aimed at punishing European companies for doing business in Iran – Europe had resisted and sought to insulate its firms from US sanctions.

•        In the 1990s they didn’t just ignore it. Europe, the EU, has legislation on the books that would protect EU businesses and adopt counter-measures against the US if the US went ahead with imposing restrictions. And it has been suggested by many that might be the course of action that Europe wants to take.

•        A 1996 regulation adopted by the EU gave Europeans protection against the application of US sanctions at the time, including the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act passed in the same year. The law could be revived and expanded to cover any new US sanctions.

•        Following a ministerial meeting on the deal at the UN recently, the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, stressed that all the signatories, including the US, had agreed that Iran was in compliance with its obligations under the terms of the agreement, and stressed that Europe would do everything possible to keep the deal alive, even in the event of US withdrawal.

•        In the wake of the Vienna agreement, however, Europe would have to go further than defying US sanctions.

•        The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has confirmed that Iran is abiding by the terms of the agreement, as have the other signatories to the deal, and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, who warned that US abrogation would damage its long-term credibility.

 

 

Daesh:

• Despite the territorial defeat of Daesh and some other terrorist groups, and their eviction from much of the land in Iraq and Syria that they had occupied, we believe that we are still vulnerable to the formidable challenge presented by extremism. The heads and operatives of Daesh are at large with formidable weapons and hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen money. They have either returned to their insurgent and terrorist roots or joined sleeper sells.
•  Their networks are almost intact, and their hate ideology still being spread, by the same petrodollars.
•  The offshoots Daesh planted in the wider region from Libya to Afghanistan, are death machines on rampage.
•  With such capacity still preserved, they look for new breeding grounds. And we must join together to deny them such fertile environments by addressing current crises and issues at hand.
•  Fighting extremism has undoubtedly a domestic component. Reducing its appeal requires promoting good governance, upholding the rule of law, eliminating corruption, rebuilding the social compact, and reducing poverty and social inequalities; as well as measures that can help prevent real or perceived marginalization and exclusion. The chronic failure of some States to satisfy the minimum demands of their populace for dignity has undermined their effectiveness and created widening social gaps for extremism to exploit.

 

Syria and Iraq:

• Syria continues to be the focus of attention in West Asia and beyond. For the past 4 years, Iran has insisted that the Syrian crisis could only be resolved politically by Syrians themselves.  Our joint efforts to defeat Daesh, and the cooperation between Russia, Iran and Turkey to reduce hostilities and start the political process in Sochi represent the sound forward strategy.
•  However, a new wave of foreign intervention, in defiance of international law, has become the major impediment in the way of stabilizing the country and threatening to further escalate and create even more permanent social and ethnic divisions.
•  The US announcement that it will maintain a military presence on Syrian soil and create a militia there constitutes flagrant aggression under international law. It emanates from an ill-conceived obsession coupled with impulsive uncalculated reaction with far reaching local, national and regional ramifications.
•  So are the almost routine violations of Syrian airspace and air raids by Israel in the past several years, which grabbed international attention only after the Syrian military was able to break the myth of invincibility of Israeli military by downing an F-16 on 10 February.
•  The attack on 7 February by the US against a Syrian contingent demonstrated that the US is now pursuing a short-sighted and mostly profiteering geo-economic agenda that has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.
•  If this dangerous policy continues, not only extremism stands to benefit enormously but also the risk of a conflagration in Syria will become ever more serious.
•   The impulsive U.S. occupation of parts of Syria directly and through hastily-found proxies is a major impediment to the political recovery and rebuilding efforts in that country that also adversely affect the reconstruction of Iraq; moves that are important prerequisite for the political stabilization of the whole region.
• We believe that the international community needs to attach sufficient attention to the rebuilding of all war-stricken parts of the region as it helps bar the regrouping and recruiting attempts of routed terrorist groups and neutralize the impact of their hate ideology on the population. It is also a moral requirement as we are all indebted to the Iraqi and Syrian peoples for the frontline combat they mounted against extremism on behalf of the whole world.
•  The national cohesion and territorial integrity of Syria and Iraq should top our list of priorities. Ethnic restiveness in Syria and Iraq, tainted with secessionism, constitutes a threat to the whole region and beyond. This is an issue that national and local authorities and all relevant States must address prudently through dialogue and on the basis of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and national constitutions, trying to turn ethnic tension into cooperation and convergence.
•  Along the same line, it is imperative to restore respect for national frontiers and the nation-state system, both of which have been undermined by terrorist groups and their Takfiri ideology.

 

Palestine:

• The Palestinian question, with occupation at its root, remains the most critical issue facing the region and the whole world. The injustice done to and atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in the past 70 years have created a deep-seated sense of anger, resentment and powerlessness in the Islamic world.
• The recognition by the US president of Al-Quds as the capital of Israel amounted to offering by Trump of what he does not own to those who have no right to it. As such it had no legal or political value but offered a new boost for the recruiting attempts by extremists.

 

Yemen:

• The aggression and indiscriminate airstrikes against the Yemeni people, which was delusionally perceived to achieve a military victory within weeks, is now entering its fourth year.
•  It is another source of tension in the region and another breeding ground for extremists that requires immediate attention. Three year of senseless bombing campaign has made clear that it is a strategic failure with no military solution. Thus, we must encourage an immediate ceasefire and urgent humanitarian relief coupled with urgent national dialogue among Yemeni parties for the establishment of an inclusive government.
•  The campaign by the US and its regional clients to distract attention from the real problems by blaming Iran for their own endemic bad choices will certainly not resolve their problems or compensate for their persistent mistakes.

 

General Issues:

•  We in Iran believe that nothing can be gained from remaining prisoners of the past and perpetuating the old paradigm of purchasing security, bloc formations and alliances.
•  For many years, we have insisted on searching for political solutions to the crises in Syria and Yemen. 
• Focusing on our immediate volatile neighbourhood of the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, we have proposed a Regional Dialogue Forum to move away from decades of war and conflict and forge a different future for our region. 
• We believe two fundamental concepts are essential in this journey.  First, our neighbours in the Persian Gulf should join Iran in recognizing that we should strive for a “strong region” in the Persian Gulf rather than a “strong-man in the region”.  The era of regional and global hegemony is long gone, and hegemonic tendencies only lead to insecurity and instability.
• We must all abandon the illusion that security can be bought from outside or achieved at the expense of insecurity of others.
•  We need to move away from the defunct concept of coalitions and alliances which rest on the premise of attaining security through exclusion of and insecurity for others. 
• We also need to address the fact of power and size disparities as well as divergence of interests.  That is why we need new innovative concepts that are inclusive and non-zero-sum.  Regional security networking is one way forward.  It allows for small and large nations to contribute to a regional security architecture which promotes security for all.  In order to enter this architecture, Persian Gulf states simply need to adhere to common norms and principles, such as sovereign equality of states; refraining from the threat or use of force; peaceful resolution of conflicts; respect for the territorial integrity; inviolability of borders; non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states; and respect for self-determination within states.
•  We also recognize that we need confidence-building measures in the Persian Gulf: from joint military visits to pre-notification of military exercises; and from transparency measures in armament procurements to reducing military expenditures; all of which could eventually lead to a regional non-aggression pact. We can begin with easier to implement issues such as the promotion of tourism, joint investments, or even joint task forces on issues ranging from nuclear safety to pollution to disaster management.