Ankara will never go along with the hostile policies of other countries, particularly the United States, against Tehran and is committed to upholding the mutual interests and cooperation with its neighbor, the Turkish envoy in Tehran said.
"Turkey has had absolutely no cooperation with the US or other countries against Iran, nor will it in the future. The history shows that Turkey has successfully resisted US pressures in this relation," Reza Hakan Tekin said in a recent talk with Iran's state TV's channel 5.
"Turkey has always opposed the policies to isolate Iran and impose further sanctions against it. We regard Iran as a friendly neighbor with which we share mutual interests, so we never cooperate with neither the US nor any other country in projects against Iran," he stressed.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for the perceived poor performance of his negotiating team during about two years of talks that culminated in a historic nuclear deal with Iran in July 2015.
It swapped time-bound curbs on Tehran's nuclear activities for relief from nuclear sanctions that had battered the Iranian economy for over a decade.
Not the End of the World
Trump has called for amendments to the accord to toughen those curbs and also add new constraints on Tehran's missile development and regional clout, issues that were agreed by the participants in nuclear negotiations to be left out of the scope of the final agreement.
To compel the Islamic Republic to give in to his excessive, unilateral demands, the Iran hawk has put pressure on the international community to limit its relations with Iran.
He gave the pact another reprieve on January 12, saying it is the final chance for European allies and the US Congress to work with him to fix those "disastrous flaws" in the nuclear deal within four months or he would withdraw from it.
Iran has repeatedly said its missile program is purely defensive and only a deterrent and has rejected a reopening of the deal, saying the West needs to first ensure the full implementation of the accord in its current form before moving on to demand negotiations on other issues.
Hakan Tekin refused to make specific comments about what he thinks would happen in the event of the US withdrawal from the UN-endorsed pact, but said it "would not be the end of the world."
"It is not right to speak based on presumptions. We believe that the [nuclear agreement] has positively contributed to global peace and regional stability and … we wish for it to survive," the Turkish diplomat added.
