The hope "is not practical and will never happen”, he said at a joint news conference in Istanbul with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.
The new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has said Tehran must resume compliance with curbs on its nuclear activity under the world powers’ 2015 deal before it can rejoin the pact.
Iran scaled back its compliance with the accord in a step-by-step response to the decision by Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump to abandon the deal in 2018 and reimpose sanctions on Tehran and the Europeans’ failure to support the Islamic Republic.
Earlier this month, Iran resumed enriching uranium to 20% at its underground Fordow nuclear plant - a level it achieved before the accord.
However, Iran has said it can quickly reverse those violations if U.S. sanctions are removed.
Iran’s parliament passed legislation last month that forces the government to take new measures if U.S. sanctions are not eased within two months.
"The United States unilaterally withdrew from this comprehensive course of action,” Zarif said. "It is the duty of the United States to return to this agreement and to fulfill its obligations.
He added: "The moment the United States fulfills its commitments, we would be prepared to fulfill ours.”
Zarif also condemned U.S. sanctions against Turkey over Ankara’s decision to procure Russian S-400 defense systems.
"The U.S. government is addicted to sanctions … and this harms the world and the U.S. itself,” he said.
Cavusoglu said Turkey hopes the United States will return to the nuclear deal, and would like to see sanctions imposed on Iran lifted.
"I hope that with the Biden administration, the United States return to this agreement and cooperation on the issue is restored,” he said. "In this way, God willing, the sanctions and embargoes imposed on brotherly Iran are lifted.”
Biden, who was vice president when the deal was signed during the Obama administration, has said he hopes to return the U.S. to the deal. But he has said Tehran must resume compliance first, a demand reiterated by new Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.
Zarif was in Turkey as part of a tour of countries of the South Caucasus aimed at building support for the creation of a regional platform that would include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia and Turkey, and encourage cooperation between the countries.
The initiative was proposed following a ceasefire agreement in November that halted weeks of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh.
Biden ‘Must Act Quickly’
Iran’s highest-ranking diplomat in the U.S. warned the Biden administration it "must act quickly” to return to the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by President Donald Trump "because the window is closing” for Washington to lift economic
sanctions before Tehran’s deadline.
"We have said time and again that if the U.S. decides to go back to its international commitments and lift all the illegal sanctions against Iran, we will go back to the full implementation of JCPOA, which will benefit all sides,” said Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, in exclusive remarks to USA TODAY.
Ravanchi said in the interview the UN nuclear inspectors would not be expelled from Iran, but additional access to its nuclear sites it provided on a voluntary basis would be halted.
Tehran wants Washington to rejoin on the same terms it left the accord.
"The party that needs to change course is the United States, and not Iran,” said Ravanchi, who helped negotiate the agreement that Trump withdrew from in 2018. He said Iran cannot accept a "renegotiation of the nuclear deal.”
Iran’s parliament set a deadline of Feb. 21 for Biden to lift U.S. sanctions as part of a move back into the agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. If the United States fails to act, Iran plans to suspend some inspections of its nuclear sites by United Nations nuclear inspectors and further boost uranium enrichment.
Seyed Muhammad Marandi, an Iranian political analyst at the University of Tehran, said the deadline is intended to signal to the Biden administration that Iran is aware that much of the Trump administration’s actions were done by decree.
"This is about testing his sincerity,” he said. "Just as Biden has been busy reversing many of Trump’s executive orders, he could easily do this with the Iranian nuclear deal. There’s nothing particularly complicated about this. It has nothing to do with Congress. Biden’s hands are by no means tied. He can do it with one signature.”
Marandi said, "Iran didn’t appease Trump for four years, and it’s not going to appease Biden,” whom Tehran views to be in a weakened position domestically because of social divisions and an economic crisis caused by the raging coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. sanctions on Iran target many of the drivers of its economy, such as the oil industry. These measures impeded Iran’s access to personal protective equipment, vaccines and health services during its coronavirus outbreak. The Trump administration said that by withdrawing from the nuclear accord and reimposing sanctions, Iran would come crawling back to the United States. That hasn’t happened.
Ravanchi said the sanctions "are taking a heavy toll on all Iranians, and particularly vulnerable segments of the society. Even medicines are not being spared from sanctions during the pandemic.”
He said it’s time for the Biden administration to "gain the trust of the Iranian people.”
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