Zarif enters
Zarif entered at 14:30 on Tuesday, 29 Khordad 1403, the foreign policy roundtable was held with the presence of Masoud Pezeshkian, the presidential candidate, and two of his advisors. Pezeshkian was seated on the right, and on his left was Mehdi Sanayi, former Iranian ambassador to Moscow.
Considering Zarif’s presence in this program and the inclusion of a university professor close to Saeed Jalili among the experts, it was predicted that important and heated discussions might take place. However, the composition of the roundtable experts has been fairly arranged.
In the foreign policy program, for all the candidates, Seyed Mohammad Kazem Sajjadpour, a seasoned diplomat and Zarif’s friend and advisor, Ibrahim Motaghi, a professor at the Faculty of Law and Political Science, and Fouad Izadi, a professor at the School of World Studies at the University of Tehran, are present as experts.
Sajjadpour represents the moderate views, Motaghi has different positions, and his ideological spectrum is not clear, while Izadi is positioned at the radical end known as revolutionary.
Predictions were that a potential clash between Zarif and Izadi would take place, with Izadi expected to raise the biggest criticisms and fallacies.
Rouhani’s stance and his two administrations also came up, but in the final minutes of the program, Javad Zarif did not address this expert and only responded.
Zarif’s mastery of foreign policy emphasized aspects of the Islamic Revolution discourse that have not been expressed by hardliners over the years, which caught the attention of users in the virtual space.
Hosamaldin Ashna, Hassan Rouhani’s advisor, wrote about Zarif’s TV presence: ‘8 years were reviewed in 8 minutes, 11 years turned to smoke in 8 minutes.’
According to some media interpretations, his reference to 8 years of Rouhani’s administration, 11 years of government activity under Saeed Jalili, and Zarif’s 8-minute talk in the foreign policy program.
Back and forth with physicians.
Fouad Izadi said in the previous session you were asked whether your government will be the third government of Mr. Rouhani, and today we see that you are present in the program with the minister of Rouhani’s government and the ambassador of that period. Therefore, the notion that your government is the third government of Rouhani is not far off. The issue of sanctions was prominent in your statements. Do you know that sanctions increased after the JCPOA, and the CAATSA sanctions, which are the toughest sanctions, were imposed after the JCPOA?
During the nuclear negotiations, some warned that trusting America was not wise, and approving the plan at the United Nations would obligate America to stay. However, Trump announced pulling out of the deal, and during the same period, the possibility of Trump’s presidency existed. Mr. Rouhani declared at Sharif Industrial University in Ordibehesht 92 that America is like a puzzle and it is easier to make a deal with a puzzle, and this was Mr. Rouhani’s main project. If your government is different from Rouhani’s government, what differences will your government have in this area?
Doctors talked about the necessity of lifting sanctions, saying it is very simple. We want to argue or solve the problem. If we want to argue, then nothing will happen. If we want to solve, experts should help. If we argue, we will make people unhappy day by day.
If we solve the sanctions, we will make people’s lives easier. The problem is with the country’s politicians on how they want to solve the problems. If we stay in sanctions, we will make people unhappy and not grow. We should not cut corners.
Entry of Zarif
His delicate remarks had two parts. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country stated in the first part of his remarks that the policy of the Islamic Republic is presented in general terms by the leadership based on the constitution. The principles of dignity, wisdom, and expediency guide foreign policy and form the framework of foreign policy.
It is very very important in this foreign policy who sits on Pasteur Street and in the President’s house. The President is the one who formulates policies and presents them for approval to the Supreme National Security Council and to the leadership.
The President is the one who implements policies and although he has his own clear perspective, he believes that he must use experts and specialists. This individual can play a role in the country’s future.
In this part, Zarif responded to the insinuations about the badness of the JCPOA, the diplomacy of humiliation, the elements of the Cactus sanctions, increasing power statistics, oil sales, and other points raised by the opponents.
Zarif stated that the power given to Iran is a symbolic power, as Ayatollah Khomeini said, ‘Victory of blood over the sword,’ and this symbolic power implemented resistance. The power in Iran was created in the midst of war in 1982, in the resistance of Lebanon and Palestine with the message of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and refusal to accept coercion.
He continued that due to this symbolic power, Israel, which used to win every war within a month, today, after 8 months, could not stand against a group, and the myth of Israel’s victory has been shattered. We stand firm in resistance, and we will not lose the power of the revolution.
In response to Izadi’s remarks, a program expert, and the statements of known and unknown users related to the Jalili intellectual movement, Zarif said that sanctions are not counted with numbers, and this is a fallacy. They say that Zarif increased the 800 sanctions during Ahmadinejad’s era to 1500. Two sanctions were imposed on himself.
These sanctions are related to individuals, institutions, and companies. But ask when the banking system, oil, petrochemical, and shipping of Iran were sanctioned?
Our former Foreign Minister commented on the claim of imposing new sanctions after the JCPOA, saying that CATSA did not have any new sanctions. The CATSA law does not have any new sanctions because the JCPOA did not allow for new sanctions to be imposed by the US.
The previous sanctions unified, our people witnessed in 1395 and 1396, two consecutive years of single-digit inflation and double-digit growth.
Our former diplomat responded to one of the questioners, saying, ‘I can also say that during that time, they used to say that when America says it is withdrawing from the JCPOA, it is a bluff because the JCPOA is in America’s favor, so let’s not use these arguments.’
Zarif continued, ‘Iran was the only country that could benefit from snapback. In the same Rouhani administration that you are upset with, we were able to condemn the US three times in the UN Security Council and increase Iran’s IR-4 centrifuges to IR-9 and enrich uranium from 20% to 60%.’
In response to the question of why Biden did not return to the JCPOA, he said Biden intended to return to the JCPOA but did not do so for two reasons. First, Israel did not allow it, and after that, Mr. Fakhrizadeh was assassinated, and the other factor was the approval of the strategic law by the parliament. Let’s not say what bitter six months passed during that time.
Zarif stated that in those bitter 6 months, we could have kept the JCPOA alive many times and not endured 3 years of this misery.
If the number of sanctions during President Rouhani’s administration with Trump increased from a thousand to fifteen hundred, in President Raisi’s administration it reached two thousand five hundred and seventy. This means that in 8 years, 500 sanctions were added, while in 3 years, a thousand sanctions were added. If we want to sweeten the people’s mouths with numbers, let’s do it right.
By showing inflation rate charts, he continued, ‘People, see what happened during the sanctions. See where people took your inflation. See where they took your economic growth and oil sales. They said we taught them how to sell oil. No, when Mr. Biden came, the policy was to loosen the screws.’
Let Mr. Trump come back, then we’ll see what our friends will do.
Contrary to previous rounds of debates and other candidates, Zarif did not display closed-end charts in the charts used. A few hours after the end of this program, Zarif released the charts on Twitter.
Our former Foreign Minister said, ‘The people matter. It doesn’t matter who sits in the pasteur. What matters is whether we can improve your life with this situation.’
It was mentioned that in the past, three governments, under the command of Ayatollah Khatami, acted to elevate Iran.
During the third millennium miracle, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also thought he was acting under the leadership’s command, but apart from sanctions, he didn’t achieve anything with the honorable secretary of the National Security Council, who is now a presidential candidate.
The Rouhani administration was also able to elevate the country in the eyes of the world and even Trump. The JCPOA was the biggest trick that America fell for. Unfortunately, you also said that the JCPOA was the biggest trick that Iran fell for.
Our former foreign minister emphasized that if the JCPOA was bad, why did Trump withdraw from it? If you say Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was bad, did Trump not withdraw from the climate agreement? Did Trump not withdraw from the INF treaty on short-range missiles? Did they also negotiate poorly with the former Soviet Union? Why do we attribute the colonizer’s mistake to the anti-colonial fighters?
Zarif said, let’s not forget, as much as our weapons are important, the people are important too. Let’s not belittle the people.
Persian
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