Zarif TV Interview in English on Nuke Talks

September 11, 2013

On September 11, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed nuclear talks and the Syrian crisis in an interview with Press TV, Iran’s English-language news channel. The interview was reproduced on YouTube in two parts. Zarif speaks English fluently after receiving two degrees from San Francisco State University and a doctorate in international relations from the University of Denver.

"We believe that our region has enough difficulty and is in enough turmoil not to be engulfed in a war in which chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction are used; and that is why Iran has been pushing for a region free from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East."
"I hope with the Russian proposal and the opportunity that had been created by the acceptance by Syria of the Russian proposal, others will stop creating excuses to push for a war, to beat the drums of war."

"We believe that nobody has the right to take the law into their own hands, that is to say that the United States does not have any legal claim to act at the same time as the prosecutor, the judge and unfortunately the executioner in dealing with these issues particularly in light of the U.S.'s own record of supporting a regime, that of Saddam Hussein that used chemical weapons not only against Iranian soldiers and civilians, but against his own people in Halabja."

"I think that a number of groups, people inside the United States, and interests outside the United States, wanted to put the president of the U.S. - whom I believe was reluctant to start the war - into a trap. A trap which he had unfortunately laid down for himself; and that was to get him involved in a war in order to address a hypothetical issue of the use of chemical weapons by the government of Syria."