“We will sell our oil eventually, but never sell our honor,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told BBC Hardtalk in an interview that will run in full on Wednesday, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars agency.
Zarif’s hard stance matches that of his government, which seeks to salvage oil exports to Europe despite mounting US sanctions that prevent European firms from conducting business with counterparts in Tehran using US banks or financial systems. They would instead have to use an alternative system or currency.
European diplomats are also open to allowing Iran to export petroleum if they can do it without putting their businesses at risk of violating sanctions. Top diplomats from France, the United Kingdom, and Germany began arriving on Monday in Belgium in preparation for a ministerial-level meeting for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“Iran is still a good year away from developing a nuclear bomb. There is still some closing, but small window to keep the deal alive,” British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters on Monday.
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Frederica Mogherini explained that remaining co-signers of the Iran nuclear deal, formally known JCPOA, are not ready to take steps to indict any possible non-compliance by Iran under the accord.
“For the time being, none of the parties to the agreement have signaled their intention to invoke this article, which means that none of them for the moment, for the time being with the current data we have had in particular from the IAEA, that the non-compliance is considered to be significant non-compliance,” she said at a news conference in Brussels on Monday.
The European and Iranian insistence that the special barter channel known as INSTEX could be operational does not coincide with previous reports that the Europeans have not assigned a bank to handle the possible transactions, devoid of the US dollar.
Meanwhile, Iran’s top diplomat is attending meetings at the United Nations in New York. He arrived on Saturday; however, he has restrictions on his diplomatic visa limiting his movements to six city blocks.
“US diplomats don’t roam around Tehran, so we don’t see any reason for Iranian diplomats to roam freely around New York City either,” Pompeo told The Washington Post on Sunday.
If the State Department had not granted Zarif access to a visa and an area that includes the UN headquarters, the Iranian mission to the UN, and the residency of the Iranian ambassador to the UN, it would have likely prompted the Iranian foreign ministry to further claim the United States was not open to resolving outstanding issues through diplomacy.
“It’s absolutely appropriate that we provide Foreign Minister Zarif and his delegation with all the rights that they are due under the UN headquarters agreement, and nothing more than that,” he added.
Zarif is in New York to attend ECOSOC meetings, including a political forum on sustainable development that concludes with a high-level segment from Tuesday to Friday.
“Rising inequalities have become a defining challenge of our time. Gross inequalities both within and among countries are putting sustainable development at risk, stirring social unrest, undermining social progress, threatening economic and political stability and undercutting human rights,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report about this year’s theme.
Peru’s Ambassador Gustavo Meza-Cuadra holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for July.
Zarif’s visit comes as the United States has floated the idea of an international naval alliance to secure commercial shipping lanes near the strategic Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran’s energy-dependent economy is heavily dependent on other co-signers of the deal which have previously purchased Iranian petroleum derivatives, namely natural gas, like Germany, Russia, and China.
While exact figures on Iranian oil exports are unavailable, it is believed the Islamic Republic is exporting less than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd). Prior to the re-implementation of US sanctions following its withdrawal from the nuclear deal last year, Tehran exported at least 2.5 million bpd in addition to holding the world’s second-largest proven gas reserves.
