President stressed that the government has never lost the opportunity for dialogue and will never do so, adding, “Until I am in charge of the executive affairs of the country, we are fully ready for fair, legal negotiation based on respect and dignity to resolve problems, but we will not surrender under the name of negotiation”.

Speaking in a cabinet session on Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani said, “One of the efforts of the government from the beginning of its term has been to break the stalemate in the political stage and possible agreements”.

“Negotiations that had been happening during eight years before this government took office did not have considerable results, and would never reach a tangible upshot,” he said, adding that the enemies of the Iranian nation used to impose new restrictions against our country.

He continued, “The first thing that the 11th government did was to break the political stalemate in the international stage and the government could remove the obstacles in its first 100 days as promised, leading to the Geneva Agreement”.

Dr Rouhani added, “Saudi Arabia and the usurper Zionist Regime spared a lot of effort to prevent the final agreement from happening,” stating that the government continued its path with determination.

“Based on this agreement, a great deal of our country’s money was unfrozen and the goods that were seized in foreign customs entered the country,” said the President.

He continued, “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was an effective factor for fighting smuggling”.

Dr Rouhani added, “The United States withdrew from the deal, believing that Iran would do the same the day after, which would lead to the re-imposition of all international sanctions against our country”.

“Recently, Saudi Arabia and the Prime Minister of the Zionist Regime announced that they played a part in the United States’ withdrawal from the JCPOA, not to mention the extremists inside the US. Of course, their actions proved that the JCPOA was heavy for Zionists and the regional reactionaries to bear,” he continued.

After the US’ withdrawal from the JCPOA, we gave an opportunity to the world so that the two sides could live up to their commitments, and that the other side could fill up the vacuum of US’ exit, said the President, adding, “We waited for a year, which was a very strategic, historic patience”.

The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran also went on to say, “We acted cautiously towards the US’ withdrawal until we could sell our oil to the amount we desired, but since they began their fully-fledged sanctions against our oil, we are in new conditions; therefore, we made firm decisions to reduce our commitments under the new conditions”.

To be updated...