US is number one enemy
The United States is Iran's "number one enemy" and Tehran will never succumb to Washington's pressure over a multinational nuclear deal, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech yesterday.
US President Donald Trump broke ranks with other major powers last month by refusing to formally certify Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal, reported Reuters.
"The American president's foolish remarks against our people show the depth of America's hostility towards the entire Iranian nation," Iran's top authority Khamenei told a group of students.
"America is the number one enemy of our nation."
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Iran's leadership Wednesday, with the two Damascus allies pushing a peace deal on Syria and looking to boost business, reported AFP.
"We are working very productively with Iran and we manage to coordinate our positions on Syria," Putin said after talks with Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani and Khamenei.
Putin's visit also followed a hike in tensions over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after Trump refused to certify the agreement last month.
Tehran signed the deal with six countries including Russia and the United States, and Moscow has slammed Trump's "aggressive and threatening rhetoric" against Iran.
While Putin said only that the two sides had discussed the deal, Russian companies looked to press on with taking advantage of the business opportunities that it has presented.
State oil giant Rosneft and the National Iranian Oil Company signed a roadmap agreement with an eye to developing joint projects worth up to $30 billion, Rosneft head Igor Sechin was quoting as saying by Russian news agencies.
Sechin said the two sides were looking to seal binding deals within a year to work on a "whole series of fields, oil and gas", and that eventual output could total 55 million tonnes of oil a year.
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