Tehran, 24 August 2024 (TDI): Iran’s new government will seek to “manage tensions” with its arch-enemy US to help reduce pressure and neutralize crippling sanctions, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
“What we have to do is manage the hostilities and tensions” between Tehran and Washington, he said in an interview late Friday on state television.
Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic ties since 1980, the year after the Islamic revolution that toppled its Western-backed emperor Shah Mohammed Reza.
A landmark 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers granted Tehran sanctions relief in return for preventions on its nuclear program.
But the agreement quickly collapsed and tensions reignited following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018.
“In foreign policy, we have a responsibility to reduce as much as possible the cost of this enmity and ease its pressure on the country,” said Araghchi, who was one of the main negotiators of the 2015 deal.
He added that Iran’s foreign policy will give priority to the neighboring nations as well as African countries, along with Russia and China, among others.
Araghchi criticized European nations for having “adopted hostile policies” toward Tehran in recent years.
He said they would only “become a priority” when they “leave their hostile and wrong policies.”
During the interview, the foreign minister expressed Iran’s s unwavering support “under any circumstances” for the so-called axis of resistance, a network of Iran-aligned armed groups across the region opposed to Israel.
A career diplomat, Araghchi became Iran’s new foreign minister after parliament approved Wednesday the new cabinet presented by reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Pezeshkian had advocated for a more open Iran but has been criticized by some among Tehran’s reformist camp for not including enough women in his new cabinet.
On Tuesday, he named Shina Ansari as his vice president for the environment, the third female to hold this position since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
