Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has censured the United States and E3 or the three European parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal over their “ill-intention” with regard to Iran and trying to blackmail Iran into renegotiating the deal.
“The US and E3 have been transparent about their transgressions and have repeatedly stated their ill-intention to compel Iran to renegotiate [the JCPOA] provisions through economic pressure and blackmail,” Zarif said in a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres published on Friday.
He noted that his experience as Iran's foreign minister shows that Western powers find it beneath them to engage on equal footing with middle-income countries, let alone developing nations.

According to Zarif, while Iran fully complied with its obligations under the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Western countries only paid lip service to their contractual obligations.

He also pointed to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 under former US president Donald Trump, saying after Trump withdrew from the deal, the US and E3 believed that they could reap the fruits of their poisonous tree and resume their old habit of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.”