On enrichment, for example, Zarif insisted that Iran could continue its domestic program with some limits and greater transparency. “We do not see any reason now that we have put so much time and effort in it, and brought [the West] to the point of abandoning the illusion of zero enrichment in Iran, why should we accept anything less.”

As for Iran’s heavy-water reactor at Arak that would produce plutonium that be reprocessed as nuclear fuel, Zarif explained: “We cannot roll back the clock 20 years and ask Iran to simply get rid of a project that has been the subject of a great deal of human and materiel investment. However, there are various ways of making sure that this reactor will remain exclusively peaceful.”

Asked about a U.S. demand to close the enrichment facility at Fordow, built into a mountainside, Zarif said: “If you sit in Iran, and you see people having concerns about Fordow, the only conclusion you can draw is that they want to attack you.”