29 August 2023; MEMO: Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said yesterday that the Islamic Republic’s “enemy” has “failed” in its attempts to isolate it, stressing Tehran’s readiness to resume negotiations on its nuclear file.
“The enemy tried to follow two strategies of isolating Iran in the world and disappointing the people inside, which it failed in both,” Raisi told a press conference in Tehran, referring to the Western sanctions imposed on Iran.
Western countries re-imposed sanctions on Tehran following the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018.
The sanctions were tightened, following nationwide demonstrations in protest of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody in September 2022. At the time, the Iranian authorities considered the demonstrations foreign plots to destabilise the country.
Raisi reiterated that Tehran is continuing efforts to “lift the sanctions” imposed by Western countries, especially the United States, but stressed Iran is not dependent on the will of the West.
“We do not link the economy and the lives of the Iranian people to the will” of the West, he said.
Raisi pointed to the recent diplomatic successes represented by the rapprochement between Iran and the Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and his country’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS. Adding that joining such blocs is an indication that “the enemy did not succeed in its policy to isolate Islamic Iran and our political, commercial and economic situation shows the failure of the enemy in this strategy.”
