Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Tuesday called on US President Donald Trump to reject his hawkish allies’ “thirst for war”.
“For millennia, Iranians have outlasted every aggressor ... @realDonaldTrump: reject #B_Team’s fake history & its thirst for #ForeverWar. Diplomacy=prudence; never weakness,” he tweeted.
The tweet included a screenshot with an opinion piece dated 2017 by US National Security Adviser John Bolton, in which he described the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as a “sinking ship”.
Zarif has in the past said that a so-called “B-team” includes Bolton as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
In a tweet earlier this month, the Iranian Foreign Minister asserted that Bolton and Netanyahu had lured Trump into leaving the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that demands for zero enrichment of uranium by his country would backfire and actually prompt Iran to accelerate its enrichment.
Last month, Zarif similarly criticized the United States and its allies in the Middle East of having a “thirst for war” following a new round of US sanctions against Iranian leaders.
Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal last May, and later imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran, the latest of which went into effect in November of 2018.
An angry Iran has in recent weeks begun to roll back its commitments as part of the nuclear deal.
Three weeks ago, the Islamic Republic announced that it had exceeded the amount of enriched uranium permitted under the deal. Several days later, Iran followed up by saying it had begun to enrich uranium to 5% purity instead of the 3.67% limit imposed under the JCPOA.
Last week, Iran warned the EU that it is prepared to end all of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear, and restore its nuclear program to the status quo ante, under which Tehran placed no limits on any areas of nuclear development.