TEHRAN — The Foreign Ministry posted a video on its website according to which Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian elaborated on his 100 days in office as foreign minister.

In the video released on Saturday, Amir Abdollahian referred to various issues, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the official name for the 2015 nuclear deal), and expressed hope that all negotiating parties could take fundamental and successful steps forward in the Vienna talks, which start on Monday.

According to IRNA, in the recorded video Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian has stated that Iran is serious in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, emphasizing that the clear view of Iran is that sanctions must be lifted and the “rights and interests of the Iranian people are upheld at the negotiating table.”

The text of the FM's remarks is as follows:

The administration took office at a time when the coronavirus was taking the lives of hundreds of our dear citizens every day, and this was the most important concern that the honorable president had and emphasized in the first meeting of the administration and in the parliament when presenting my plans, I promised the honorable representatives that my first measure at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be a special focus on importing vaccines needed by the nation in the country. For this reason, on the first working day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a joint meeting was held with the presence of my good colleague, Dr. Einollahi, Minister of Health, as well as high-ranking officials from the Central Bank, Red Crescent and various bodies of the country to arrange and facilitate the import of vaccines from abroad. 

We hope that the negotiating parties will be serious in the negotiations.

The directors of the foreign ministry, and our ambassadors in foreign countries made great efforts to import a large volume of vaccines in the first days, while our scientists, and our youth, simultaneously produced domestic vaccines in several Iranian knowledge-based companies, Pasteur Institute, as well as the Barekat Institute and various departments started serious efforts to produce domestic vaccines and have achieved great success in this regard.

Today, I would like to announce with satisfaction that more than one hundred million doses of vaccine have been injected to our dear people in the country and we are in a situation where we are able to export some of our domestic vaccines abroad.

In the framework of economic diplomacy, neighbors-oriented and Asia-oriented diplomacy, we started unified actions in the diplomatic apparatus. For years, there has been talk of the permanent membership and the start of permanent membership for Iran in Shanghai.

The first trip of Iran's honorable President abroad was to Tajikistan and the city of Dushanbe. During that international and regional meeting in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the document on the commencement of Iran's permanent membership in the Shanghai organization was approved, and this was one of the successes achieved in the new administration, and the continuous and round-the-clock follow-up of my colleagues in the foreign ministry along with the emphasis and recommendations of President Raisi and the various consultations that both the president and the diplomatic apparatus made, led to this success.

With the process of permanent membership in the Shanghai organization, we will gradually and step by step witness the success and development of trade and economic cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization region and the Shanghai member states in the next year.  

Another program on the agenda of the diplomatic body was the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, and given that the administration had begun its work quickly and the internal situation was considered as a top priority in the first months of the administration, it was decided that I would travel to New York as foreign minister.

In New York, various meetings were held with more than 50 foreign ministers from all over the world, including neighbors, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Africa, Latin America, UN officials, think tanks, and former U.S. officials, media and editors and media executives in the United States.

During the trip to New York, in addition to giving speeches in several international meetings and conferences, we had the opportunity to meet with the staff of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington and have a good meeting and we were informed about the problems of Iranians living abroad, especially Iranians living in the United States. On the way back from the UN summit in New York and the meetings with Iranians living abroad and our colleagues at the Interests Section in Washington, urgent measures were taken to solve the Iranians’ problem.

We hope that we will be able to gradually resolve all the problems and meet our demands. And that good work has been done by my colleagues so far, such as efforts to include a section on the new foreign ministry website for direct communication between Iranians living abroad and citizens inside the country with the foreign minister.

Unfortunately, the enemies, the Zionist lobby and the enemies' media are trying to create a kind of Iranophobia, especially among the new generation of Iranians abroad.

We will activate a section on the website of the foreign ministry in the coming days where our dear people abroad can ask if they have a problem in terms of the compulsory military service.

As the foreign minister of Iran, I offer that dear Iranians can travel to the Islamic Republic of Iran with peace of mind, and can safely use this opportunity whenever they want to return to their country of residence according to the plan.

We will answer you in that system that you can travel to Iran without any problems and we guarantee that you will be answered.

I would like to emphasize here that the number of people who have dual nationalities and have been tried in Iran for committing a crime and their crime has been proven, is limited. And I would like to explicitly tell you that if anyone else and even if the foreign minister had committed such a crime, he would have faced the same situation. However, many of them were forgiven by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

During our travels and consultations with friends and allies of Iran, we were able to find friends from our difficult days, and in the future, I will speak more about it with my dear compatriots.

One of the serious issues and complex developments over the last hundred days in the surrounding countries and our neighbors was the rapid developments in Afghanistan.

We have made extensive political efforts so that the Islamic Republic of Iran won’t be affected by the insecurity and instability created in Afghanistan during the transition period, while devising measures that can control the borders, manage the influx of refugees, and on the other hand have a political solution to the Afghan crisis.

Holding an in-person meeting with foreign ministers of countries neighboring Afghanistan in Tehran was one of the measures considered in this regard.

Another issue that has been seriously considered over the last 100 days in the country's diplomatic apparatus is the JCPOA, the Vienna talks and the interaction and cooperation in line with the rights and interests of the dear nation of Iran. We will start the Vienna talks next week. In recent weeks, my deputy, Dr. Bagheri, has been in European capitals, in Moscow, and in a webinar link with Beijing, as well as traveling to some neighboring countries and the region, making consultations.

I myself had detailed talks with the foreign ministers, all of whom are our partners in the JCPOA-related negotiations. We have made all the necessary arrangements to reach a “good agreement” if the other parties return to their full commitments, and we have explicitly stated our positions and demands in the previous talks and the JCPOA and its subsequent resolution adopted by the UN Security Council. 

The clear view of the Islamic Republic of Iran is that the rights and interests of the Iranian people should be guaranteed at the negotiating table and sanctions should be lifted, and we hope that we can take fundamental and successful steps forward in the Vienna talks.

Certainly, the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be handcuffed and there are various options in front of us. We start with talks and negotiation in Vienna. We are serious about negotiating to reach an agreement and we hope that the negotiating parties will be serious in the negotiations.

We told them bluntly that we are a pragmatic and results-oriented administration and that we hope that the Vienna talks would yield results.

Within the framework of balanced foreign policy and active, dynamic and intelligent diplomacy, the development of relations with all countries of the world is on the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Focusing on economic diplomacy, paying attention to the situation of Iranians abroad, focusing on energy, diplomacy, water diplomacy, public diplomacy in all its aspects and disciplines are among the topics on the agenda of the foreign ministry.

Development of foreign trade and gaining currency for the country are among the issues that the foreign ministry will pay serious attention to in this administration.