TEHRAN— Saeed Jalili, a member of the Expediency Council and Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), said on Thursday night that the maximum pressure campaign on Iran has failed.

Speaking at a live TV show, Jalili said that the United States has declared and implemented a maximum pressure campaign on Iran. 

Noting that they did not put anything behind in the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, Jalili added, “The American officials have taken this position (of denouncing the campaign) and explicitly stated in February this year that our policy of maximum pressure has failed miserably and this is a great victory.”

Emphasizing that the Iranian nation created this victory, the former SNSC chief who also served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said that the Iranian nation has shown that it understands the politics and the enemy well, and in spite of all the problems that exist, it “stands”, “resists” and “wins”.

He continued by saying that another “golden leaf” has been added to the honors of the Iranian nation.

Jalili, who ran for the presidential post in the June election but withdrew in favor of Ebrahim Raisi, said that a U.S. official says that the United States was isolated and, more interestingly, he states that not only the U.S. could not “push Iran back”, but Iran “came forward”.

The Expediency Council member emphasized, “I congratulate the people of Iran… because it was the people who doomed the maximum pressure to failure and achieved this victory.”

“The Americans, from the time of Bush and Obama and Mrs. Clinton, have said that we are pursuing crippling sanctions, and Trump has said that ‘maximum pressure’ and Mr. Biden's slogan was a different one from Trump, but now more than a year from now, after his election, he has not reduced any of the Trump-era sanctions. He has even added more sanctions,” Jalili said. 

Stating that the U.S. policy is to put maximum pressure on the Iranian nation as much as they can, he added that the U.S. sanctions and pressure are not just primary sanctions but spread to secondary sanctions, meaning the sanctions not only do not allow anyone from the United States to sell anything to Iran, but it also imposes sanctions on any country that wants to have economic relations with Iran.

The former nuclear negotiator said, “One of their slogans was that no one should buy oil from Iran until Iran's oil sales reaches zero. They announced and implemented this issue, but today our minister of oil officially announces that we sell 1.2 million barrels of oil and receive the income.”

Jalili added that if now other countries are challenging the United States and do not listen to it and are buying oil from Iran, this is a great opportunity for the country.

“Countries, powers and governments for any reason entered the challenge with the United States and ignore its sanctions,” the Expediency Council member highlighted.

Jalili went on to say that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was reporting that Iran was fully loyal to its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, nevertheless, the United States withdrew from the agreement and announced the imposition of maximum pressure on the Islamic Republic.

He concluded, “European countries were not willing to condemn this action of the United States and only expressed regret. That means the United States also had the support of the European countries, but they themselves came to the conclusion that their action not only did not bear fruit but also failed miserably.”