Speaking at a televised program on Saturday night, Amirabdollahian expressed concern regarding certain provocations by the Israeli regime near Iran’s borders in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The regime, he said, used the flare-up of tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region earlier this year to establish a presence in parts of Azerbaijan.
He, however, called the efforts “abortive” and said, “We never tolerate the Zionist regime’s presence and its provocative measures near the Islamic Republic’s borders.”
A recent military maneuver conducted inside Iran near Azerbaijan’s borders was meant to “relay a message (of warning) to the Zionists,” the top diplomat reminded.
“The Islamic Republic has always declared its position of calling the Israeli regime illegitimate,” the senior diplomat stated.
“We (just) know one country that is named Palestine, with the Noble al-Quds as its capital. For many reasons, the Zionist regime has no place in the region’s future,” he added, Press TV reported.
“The Zionists have taken even the Jewish hostage in the occupied territories,” Amirabdollahian noted, reiterating the Islamic Republic’s position that the territories’ fate has to be decided in a referendum that is attended by all the people there, notwithstanding their ethnicity or nationality.
On the talks on the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Amirabdollahian said Iran was to return to negotiations that were resumed in Vienna earlier this year.
“Our logic is a logic of dialog. We will return to the negotiations soon,” he said.
However, he said, the talks should be rewarding for the Islamic Republic and the country has to be able to draw all of the nuclear agreement’s “practical benefits.”
Nevertheless, the country does not tie implementation of its foreign and economic policy to the talks and the agreement, Amirabdollahian noted.
“The government has an economic development plan that is advancing apace. Nor are we supposed to make the Foreign Ministry await the JCPOA (‘s fruition),” he concluded.