Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad ZarifReuters

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a speech to his country's parliament on Tuesday that Tehran's nuclear deal with the P5+1 powers was a great defeat for Israel.

"Never before was the Zionist regime so isolated, even among her own allies," he said.

This, he explained, is why Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is so furiously "shouting all over the place" and trying to stymie the agreement at any cost.

"With this agreement, the decades-long anti-Iran propaganda of the Zionist regime is finally neutralized," said Zarif, who was Iran's chief negotiator on the deal.

“We don’t say the deal is totally in favor of Iran. Any negotiation is a give and take. We have definitely shown some flexibility," the minister said. "I tell you as I told the Supreme Leader, we did our best to preserve most of the red lines, if not all.” 

US Secretary of State John Kerry has acknowledged that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's continued vows to defy the US are "very disturbing."

"I don't know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that's his policy," Kerry told Saudi-owned television station Al-Arabiya Tuesday. "But I do know that often comments are made publicly and things can evolve that are different. If it is the policy, it's very disturbing, it's very troubling."

"We are not kidding when we talk about the importance of pushing back against extremism, against support for terrorism and proxies who are destabilizing other countries," he added. "It’s unacceptable.”

On Saturday, Khamenei gave a particularly inflammatory speech just days after the deal, stating that the Islamic Republic's policies toward the US have not changed. 

"We have repeatedly said we don't negotiate with the US on regional orinternational affairs; not even on bilateral issues," he said. "There are some exceptions like the nuclear program that we negotiated with the Americans to serve our interests."

"We will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon," he continued, referring to the Iranian terror axis in the Middle East. "Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant US will not change."