Democracy Now TV Interview with Seyed Hossein Mousavian, June 23, 2025
From day one, when Israelis attacked Iran, I publicly said, “This is not an Israeli strike. Israel has coordinated this military invasion of Iran by the NATO countries, by the U.S., and it is fully supported by NATO, and Iran is confronting NATO, not only Israel. And it has now been about 12 days passed, everybody understands that the NATO countries are fully supporting Israel, and the U.S. also attacked Iran at the demand of the Israelis. This is number one.
Number two, if President Trump really wanted a nuclear deal, he could get it easily. Because in his first term, he chaired the JCPOA. You remember. JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal was agreed between Iran, and the U.S. and the world powers, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2231, the IAEA adopted many resolutions. It was working very well. Iran gave the highest level of access inspection, transparency measures to the IAEA. Every technical issue with the IAEA was resolved. Even IAEA publicly said, “All possible military dimension issues are resolved.” The deal was working very well. Even beyond the nuclear, Iran and the U.S., they agreed that Iran would buy 100 American passenger planes, the Boeing planes. Even when 16 American sailors they entered Iranian water territory illegally, Iran released them in less than 48 hours. Everything was going in the right direction until President Trump withdrew and imposed the most comprehensive sanctions. This is about the first term of President Trump.
In the second term, when he was elected, he actually put an option on the Iranian table: “Deal under my terms and conditions, or you will be attacked.” This was not and is not the language of diplomacy. This is the language of threat and bullying. And then, we have Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi with Steve Witkoff. They had three rounds of talks in Oman and Rome, and they agreed on the principles. They really agreed. Then, they agreed that the technical team would sit, and they would draft it to be signed. Suddenly, Prime Minister Netanyahu called President Trump, and President Trump backed down. And then, Israel attacked Iran. When Israel attacked Iran, then President Trump publicly said to Iranians, “Unconditional surrender.” And then, the U.S. attacked. And now, after the U.S. attacked, now he’s saying “regime change”! Therefore, now, everybody, I think, has a correct understanding, well understanding that unfortunately, President Trump is not really for diplomacy and a solution.
Otherwise, if really, they really want a solution on the nuclear, it is easy because we have three major issues. One is about Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA. We have the model. The model worked for three years. All technical issues were resolved. The nuclear deal, they can agree that all transparency measures, verification measures can be revived based on the deal, and all technical issues can be resolved between Iran and the IAEA. The second issue is whether Iranian enrichment would be military or civilian. If it is below 5%, it would definitely be civilian. Iran is ready to go back to – like the JCPOA, to go back to enrichment below 5%, to stop 20%, to stop 60%. And the third issue is about the Iranian stockpile of enriched 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. I think if there is a comprehensive, fair, and balanced deal, Iran would be ready either to export or to dilute this stockpile. Therefore, every concern would be removed. It is really within the reach if President Trump is going to have diplomacy succeed.