JAKARTA - Tehran will seriously revive the deal on its nuclear program, if there is a guarantee the United States will not leave it again, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Last month, Iran's foreign minister said Tehran needed stronger guarantees from Washington to revive the 2015 deal and urged UN atomic watchdogs to stop "political driving investigations" from Tehran's nuclear work. Speaking to the CBS 60 Minutes event in an interview conducted last Tuesday, President Raisi said, "If this is a good and fair deal, we will be serious about reaching an agreement," as reported by Reuters, September 19.
In his remarks ahead of attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, President Raisi added, "It must last. There needs to be assurances. If there is a guarantee, then America cannot withdraw from the deal."
He said the United States had broken their promise to an agreement, in which Tehran had detained its nuclear program in exchange for aid from US, European Union and UN economic sanctions.
"They did it unilaterally. They said that, 'I got out of the deal.' Now making promises to be meaningless," President Raisi said.
"We can't trust Americans, because of the behavior we've seen from them. That's why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust," he said.
The US network described interview with journalist Lesley Stahl as Raisi's first with a Western reporter.
For months of indirect talks with Washington in Vienna, Austria, Tehran demanded US guarantees that no future US President would abandon a deal, as former President Donald Trump did in 2018.
Previously, the recovery of the 2015 Nuclear Deal hit a bright road in March.
However, indirect talks between Tehran and Washington were later stalled due to several issues, including Tehran's insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) close its investigation into traces of uranium found in three unannounced locations before the pact was revived.
There is no sign that Tehran and Washington will succeed in overcoming their stalemate, but Iran is expected to use the UN General Assembly to keep the diplomatic ball rolling, repeating its willingness to reach a sustainable deal.
However, President Joe Biden was unable to provide the strong guarantee Iran is seeking, as the deal is a political understanding of the legally binding agreement.
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