US Must Stop Arms Sales to Region Before Any Talks on Iran Missiles - Zarif

By Staff, Agencies

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, officially known as the JCPOA, did not include Iran’s defensive capabilities because the US was not prepared to stop its arms sales to the region as a precondition.

Zarif made the remarks in an exclusive Skype interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday evening, when asked about the US call for inclusion of non-nuclear issues in the JCPOA.

“The nuclear deal was negotiated based on what we could agree and what we could not agree. This is the deal that was made,” Zarif said.

“The United States has to accept that ... we decided not to agree upon certain things, not because we neglected them, but because the United States and its allies were not prepared to do what was necessary. Is the US prepared to stop selling arms to our region?”

Zarif said Iran “spends a seventh of Saudi Arabia on defense, with 2.5 times its population."

“If it wants to talk about our defense … is the US prepared to reduce hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons it is selling to our region? Is the US prepared to stop massacre of children in Yemen if it wants to talk about the situation in Yemen,” Zarif asked.

“The United States was not prepared to discuss these issues when we negotiated the nuclear deal. That's why we agreed to limit the deal,” Zarif noted.