RNA - "The Americans followed the strategy of the new Middle East to ensure their presence in the region; such strategy was doomed to failure since the beginning," General Dehqan said, addressing a pre-sermon speech of the Friday prayers.
"The US' strategy was to create a situation to fuel the flames of instability in the region and destroy the national capabilities of the countries standing against them," he added.
The Iranian Defense Minister said that Islamophobia and Iranophobia were on the top of the US agenda to incite the Muslim countries against each other and sell arms to these countries.
Dehqan's remarks came after earlier in August, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei underlined that the experience of negotiations with Washington on the nuclear issue and the other side's disloyalty to its undertakings proved that talks with the US on the regional issues is a "lethal poison".
"They (the Americans) want us to negotiate with them on the regional issues but the nuclear deal experience tells us that this (talks with the US) is a lethal poison and we cannot trust the Americans' words in any issue," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing a large gathering of Iranian people from all walks of life in Tehran.
Noting that the regional problems and challenges between Iran and the US are insolvable through negotiations, he said, "The Americans want to take everything in return for nothing. Negotiations with such a government mean diversion from the correct path of the country's progress, making repeated concessions and bearing their bullying, violations and disloyalty in practice."
Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the American officials' letters to Iran in recent years in which they showed respect and interest in cooperation with Tehran, and said, "We said two years ago that the nation will see the nuclear talks as an experience to see what the Americans would do in practice and now it has become clear that they are still busy with plots and destructive measures."
Noting that 6 months has passed since the start of the implementation of the nuclear deal with no tangible change in the Iranian people's everyday lives, he said, "The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as an experience proved again the fruitlessness of negotiations with the Americans, their disloyalty and the necessity for distrusting the US promises and showed that the way for the country's progress and improving people's living conditions is paying attention to the domestic potentials and not the enemies who are continuously rocking the boat for Iran in the region and the world."
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