A Pakistani politician said that the US is imposing increasingly harsh sanctions on Iran while simultaneously calling for Tehran to return to negotiations, making it clear that Washington wants to revive nuclear negotiations only under its own conditions.
Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, who served as Pakistan’s Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the UN from 2014 to 2019, said in an exclusive interview with IRNA in Islamabad, “I can understand that the European Troika is trying to posture that they are operating independently of the US. But actually the they are acting at Washington’s behest.”
Meanwhile she said, “The US keeps tightening sanctions on Iran even as it wants Tehran to return to the negotiating table. The aim is very clear. The US wants to revive the nuclear talks, but on Washington’s terms. And the terms have been declared many times, which have come to the negotiating table and accepted a zero-enrichment nuclear deal.”
She also said, “It is very difficult for Iran to accept preconditions because whatever deal has to emerge has to be from the process of negotiations and not a pre-determined US demand. If the US expects Iran to agree to conditions, then what’s the point of negotiations? The American strategy for now is to build pressure on Iran to return to nuclear negotiations on entirely US terms.”
Ambassador Lodhi disclosed that Pakistan has been conveying messages to Tehran from the Trump administration, the aim being to explore if nuclear negotiations can be revived between the US and Iran. She also said the way forward is by negotiations without preconditions, but US sanctions that continue to be tightened remain an obstruction. Bullying is characteristic of the Trump administration, but it is not the way to persuade countries to talk.
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