West has failed to isolate Iran, country’s president says

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi says the West had failed to isolate his country, while also holding out the prospect of resuming talks on reviving a nuclear deal.

“The enemy tried to follow two strategies: one was to isolate Iran from the world and the other was to discourage the Iranian nation,” Raisi says.

“It failed with both strategies. It didn’t succeed in isolating Iran,” he tells a news conference in Tehran.

Raisi is referring to sanctions imposed on Iran since the United States torpedoed the nuclear deal in 2018, as well as protests that erupted in September 2022 over a young woman’s death in custody.

The ultra-conservative president says Iran is continuing to seek “the lifting of sanctions” through negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear accord.

But he adds “we are not tying the country’s economy to the wishes” of Western countries.