A senior cleric has told worshippers at the main Friday prayer service in Tehran that Iran will accept a nuclear deal with six global powers only if sanctions are lifted immediately, frozen revenues are returned, and the Islamic republic's revolutionary ideals are preserved.
Under the agreement agreed in Vienna on July 14, sanctions against Iran will be gradually removed in return for Tehran accepting long-term curbs on its nuclear program.
The talks involved Iran and the five veto-wielding Security Council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France -- as well as Germany and the European Union.
In a July 17 address broadcast on radio, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani said some of the countries with whom the accord was signed were untrustworthy and had made excessive demands that were an "insult."
He praised Iranian negotiators for their work, saying Iran’s negotiating partners had been “forced to retreat."