The United States wanted to ...

The United States wanted to send its trained rebel groups to Syria to fight ISIS. Out of twenty-five hundred rebels they had trained, only seventy accepted to go to Syria to fight ISIS. Everybody else wanted to go to Syria to fight the government. So you've got to wake up and smell the coffee. . . . The rebel groups have not fired a shot against ISIS.
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 Mohammad Javad Zarif

Quotes from the same author

I think the most important challenge that remains is this mentality in Washington that sanctions have been an asset, and some people want to find even an excuse to keep them or an excuse to reintroduce them. I don't know whether they've looked at the record of how sanctions actually produce exactly the opposite of what they wanted to produce.
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 Mohammad Javad Zarif
This visa-waiver thing is absurd. Has anybody in the West been targeted by any Iranian national, anybody of Iranian origin, or anyone travelling to Iran? Whereas many people have been targeted by the nationals of your allies, people visiting your allies, and people transiting the territory of, again, your allies. So you're looking at the wrong address.
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 Mohammad Javad Zarif
I think we are making an assumption that that is the outcome of the negotiations. I think President Assad will be prepared to accept whatever the outcome of the intra-Syrian dialogue and the decision of the Syrian people is. But people are trying to decide and determine the outcome of the negotiation before even we agree to start the negotiations.
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 Mohammad Javad Zarif
The Persian Gulf is our lifeline ... We will respect international navigation, for us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must.
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 Mohammad Javad Zarif