Iran Press/ Iran news: 'Iran has not participated in any activity in any populated area and we will never do so in the future,' Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera English.
'We condemn any attack against civilians, no matter who does it; we condemn anybody using chemical weapons; we condemn any government but at the same time, we condemn groups who use people as human shield,' he noted.
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Answering a question about the cause of civil war in Syria, Zarif said that’s the fault of those who prevented a political settlement in Syria because of an illusion that they could remove Syrian President Basher al-Assad from power.
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Iran wanted a political settlement, they refused; They wanted their mercenaries and their foreign fighters, he noted.
Zarif said that there is a government in Syria who has a seat in the UN and those who tried to overthrow that government through the use of Daesh (ISIS) and Nusra are those who have created this mess.
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'Nothing justifies war crimes,' he noted while referring to the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam's war crime against Iran during the eight-year imposed war.
US is not a "reliable negotiating partner"
Iranian Foreign Minister said that the United States has once again proved that it is not a "reliable negotiating partner" by pulling out of a decades-old treaty with Iran, stressing that US President Donald Trump is not bound by any negotiated settlement.
"They (the US) were always saying that we want a treaty with Iran. Now they just withdrew from the "1955 Treaty of Amity" that we have with the United States because the International Court of Justice ruled against them," Zarif said in an interview with Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera in New York released on Friday.
"That tells you that whatever you negotiate with this president and with this administration, they're not going to be bound by it," he added.
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that Washington is canceling a 1955 treaty with Tehran after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the United States to halt the unilateral sanctions it recently re-imposed on "humanitarian" supplies to Iran.
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In response to a question about the US move to pull out from the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Zarif once again defended the deal that is in the "interest of the international community."
"The nuclear deal is the best the United States can get, and it's the best Iran can get, and it's the best the international community can get," the top Iranian diplomat told UpFront host Mehdi Hasan.
Asked if Iran will ever meet with the US president or members of his administration, Zarif said, "In politics, never say never. But I believe that there is need for a serious change in the [US] administration."
He emphasized that Iran is "not actually eager to meet with" President Trump because the "United States is not a reliable negotiating partner."
Despite Washington's withdrawal, Iran has not left the deal yet, but stressed that the remaining signatories to the agreement now had to work to offset the negative impacts of the US pullout for Iran if they wanted Tehran to remain in it.
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