Iran demands US alter position on Israel’s nuclear capabilities

Issuing a belated response to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s list of demands for Iran, Tehran issued corresponding list with which it claims the US must comply.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

Iran announced a list of 15 demands for improving relations with the United States, including a U.S. return to the 2015 nuclear accord, in response to a similar list of demands made by Washington last month.

In an article in a state-owned newspaper Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on the U.S. to stop providing arms to the “invaders of Yemen,” referring to Saudi Arabia, and to drop its opposition to the nuclear disarmament of Israel.

It was reported this week that The Trump administration signed a secret letter declining to pressure Israel to sign an international nuclear-nonproliferation treaty.

Zarif’s demands came in response to requirements laid out in May by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who called for a wholesale change in Iran’s military and regional policies, threatening the “strongest sanctions in history” if it refused. The U.S. withdrew from the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers earlier that month.

Not long after Pompeo issued the U.S.’ list of demands, Zariff took to Twitter to lambaste the White House’s foreign policy, tweeting, “U.S. diplomacy sham is merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions & failed policies — dictated by corrupt Special Interest — it repeats the same wrong choices and will thus reap the same ill rewards. Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for post-US JCPOA solutions.”

While a number of foreign governments maintain that Israel is the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, the Jewish state’s longstanding official policy is to neither deny or confirm its possession of nuclear weapons.