Ignore the Iranian rhetoric, look at actions, Hammond says

Hammond tells Channel 2 that the images of Iranian leaders burning flags and calling for death to America and death to Israel amounted to little more than rhetoric, which was easy to ignore when negotiating a nuclear deal.

“I prefer to look at the substance rather than the rhetoric,” he says. “All politicians everywhere are engaged in rhetoric, which is not the same as the actions they are doing.”

Hammond says the sides “never pretended that this solves all our problems with Iran,” and they all have to keep cooperating to “deal with Iran’s disruptive behavior in the region.”

Defending the deal, he says sanctions weren’t working to keep Iran from a nuclear weapon, but the deal does.

“If we didn’t do this we ran the ultimate risk of going to war,” he says.

He adds that Iran won’t be able to hide nuclear activity given eyes in the sky that will watch the country’s nuclear program.

“Hiding things is not so easy in the days of 24-hour satellite surveillance,” he says.

Hammond adds that the arms embargo was only put in place to bring Iran to the table, which it did, and thus can be lifted so long as Iran complies with the nuclear deal.