TEHRAN, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian foreign minister said on Thursday although Tehran maintains that diplomacy is the best path to the achievement of a "good, strong and lasting agreement" in the Vienna nuclear talks, the Islamic republic's reaction to "bullying behavior" is on the basis of power.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a phone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry's website.
In response to the U.S. "unconstructive move" of submitting an anti-Iran resolution to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran took the reciprocal action of stepping up its peaceful nuclear activities within the framework of a law passed by the Iranian parliament in December 2020 to counter Washington's sanctions and safeguard the people's economic interests under the nuclear deal, said the Iranian minister.
The U.S. action has been aimed at extracting political concessions from Iran in the negotiations in the Austrian capital, Amir-Abdollahian noted.
"We have always invited the West to the path of diplomacy, and a few days prior to the recent IAEA Board of Governors meetings, we tabled a political plan for the continuation of the (nuclear) talks until reaching a final agreement," said Amir-Abdollahian.
For his part, Hussein said Iraq has always encouraged the United States and other Western sides to resolve the problems and lift the sanctions on Iran.
Last week, the IAEA's Board of Governors adopted an anti-Iran resolution proposed by the United States and its allies, accusing Tehran of noncooperation.
In reaction to the resolution, Iran has taken a number of remedial measures such as shutting off a number of the IAEA's surveillance cameras at its nuclear sites.
Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with the world powers in July 2015 accepting to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of the sanctions on Tehran. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed Washington's unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting Iran to reduce some of its nuclear commitments under the agreement in retaliation. ■
