Iran always stood by Resistance Front : Senior cleric

Speaking during Friday Prayers sermon held at Tehran University’s campus, Sediqi referred to the development in Syria, saying, “During his trip to Syria and Turkey, the foreign minister of our country announced that Iran always stands by the Resistance Front and by Syria.”

The Takfiri terrorists led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a large-scale attack in Aleppo and Idlib provinces in the northwest of Syria last week, seizing several areas, according to reports.

Since then, the Syrian government forces have been engaged in fierce clashes with the terrorists to regain ground.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-sponsored militancy since March 2011, with Damascus saying the Western states and their regional allies are aiding terrorist groups to wreak havoc in the Arab country.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the senior cleric stressed that the US has lost its competence to negotiate with Iran.

He added that Americans do not adhere to international laws and their logic is force. “They demand ransom from all nations that are weaker than them.”

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.

Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.

The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.

The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.