Zarif: Cabal pushing US into conflict

'So this is a cabal ... who are pushing the United States and President Trump into conflict and into disastrous situations and they will be the first to suffer the consequences, unfortunately,' Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with Qatari media 'Al Jazeera English'.

Referring to US sanctions as 'economic terrorism', he said: 'They want to put pressure on the Iranian people in order to change their policy.' 

He added: 'That is the way the United States has acted for 40 years and, particularly since President Trump came to office, it violated a commitment made by another US president, President Obama.' 

Stressing the fact that sanctions will have no political impact and that Iran has initiated various ways with its partners to protect itself, Zarif said: ' One of them will be in the long run to the detriment of the United States and I think that is becoming increasingly popular and that is not to use dollars for your transactions.' 

'Second is an instrument that we are developing with the Europeans, we have already developed with our neighbours and we have developed them with the Chinese and that is not to engage in transfer of money across the borders which is where the United States would step in and will try to twist the arms of people who are engaged in it, illegally and unlawfully,' he noted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif said US is swayed by foreign interests, adding: 'I believe the United States is not serving US interests. More than the United States, it is serving Israeli interests.'

'And unfortunately, there are a couple of people in our region who have aligned themselves with Israeli interests,' he said, listing the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed.'

For much of the interview Zarif described as 'baseless lie', accusations like Iran's responsibility for killing 600 American soldiers during the US war against Iraq.