Washington: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Iran wants an agreement with Washington but is demanding conditions he considers unacceptable, as he warned that American sanctions are causing mounting economic pressure on Tehran.
“Iran would love a deal. The problem is, the conditions they continue to place are absurd. They’re not even serious. But that could change. Eventually, you have to eat.”
“The economic pain that is being inflicted on Iran right now, on that regime, is extraordinary. It compounds; it’s growing every day,” Rubio said.
“These sanctions get worse over time; they get more painful as time goes on,” he added.
Rubio placed responsibility for the economic hardship on Iran’s leadership rather than American policy.
“It’s all brought about by the fact that this radical regime of lunatics is imposing this on their own people. They’re destroying their own country.”
Rubio criticised how Tehran had used resources after sanctions relief granted during former President Barack Obama’s administration.
“When Obama gave them sanctions relief, they didn’t use that money to build up hospitals, roads, bridges, and universities. They used that money to build weapons and arm proxies in the region to attack us and other countries.”
Rubio also accused Iran’s leadership of fuelling conflicts across the Middle East.
“Behind every single one of these destabilising activities in the Middle East there’s one common denominator — the Iranian regime.”
He added: “They are behind all the instability in the region. They are the source of instability in the region. I think the countries of the region realise that as well.”
“We work for America. We don’t work for the global order; we don’t work for other countries. We work for the United States.”
Asked about cyberattacks in France attributed by French officials to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Rubio declined to discuss whether Washington had shared intelligence with Paris.
He accused the force of a longstanding pattern of sabotage but distinguished Iran’s leadership and its citizens.
“The Iranian people are great people,” he said.
(IANS)
