TEHRAN: Tehran said yesterday it will keep talking with world powers on its disputed nuclear programme despite a US move to blacklist Iranian companies for evading sanctions.
“We are pursuing the negotiations seriously and of course we will give a well-considered, purposeful, smart and proper reaction to any inappropriate and unconstructive move,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his Facebook page.
This was despite the Americans having made “inappropriate moves to which we gave the appropriate response by considering all aspects of the issue”.
“The negotiations and achieving a result are a difficult task and will definitely have a lot of ups and downs. We have predicted that from the very beginning.”
He later told CBS television in the United States: “The process has been derailed, the process has not died.” Zarif also told the network’s Face the Nation programme that Iran is committed to the Geneva accord, adding however: “It takes two to tango.”
The United States blacklisted a dozen overseas companies and individuals on Thursday for evading its sanctions imposed on Iran to halt what the West sees as its bid to build a nuclear bomb.
AFP
