In a statement, Zarif responded to some of Kerry’s claims he made on Thursday at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the conclusion of the nuclear talks with Iran.

“As we have announced time and again, the Iranian nation’s resistance to various kinds of international pressure to give up [the country’s] peaceful nuclear program, and the pursuit of its rights based on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)” forced the United States to put confrontation aside and come to the negotiating table, Zarif said.

During the Senate hearing, Kerry had said, “I was privileged to be the chairman of this committee when we passed the Iran sanctions effort,” claiming that the sanctions "played a very significant role in bringing Iran to the table.”

Iran and the P5+1 countries – the US, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany – succeeded in finalizing the text of an agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in the Austrian capital Vienna on July 14 after 18 days of intense talks over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Under the JCPOA, limits will be put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic.
‘Hollow threat’

The Iranian foreign minister also criticized Kerry’s remarks over “US capacity to use military force” against Tehran, dismissing it as a “hollow threat.”

The US secretary of state and other American officials have frequently acknowledged that “these threats have had no effect on the Iranian people’s will," Zarif said, adding, "It’s better for the Americans to forget their long-lasting habit and put aside the language of threat and sanctions against the great people of Iran once and for all.”

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