Verbal attacks by Iranian top military and political officials on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for saying that the US would adopt a strategy to face Iranian threats, went unabated for the third consecutive day. “Iran’s armed forces will not wait for a green light from any force to develop their defense capabilities,” Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri said Wednesday, adding that Washington “does not have the courage to face a military confrontation with Tehran.” Iran’s adviser for military affairs, Rahim Safavi said: “Iran has become the biggest force in the West Asia region whether America accepted it or not.” Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei said the US steps “aim to overthrow the regime”, noting that he “is not worried” because all such “conspiracies have failed.” “The United States has practiced hostility to strike the regime through political, economic, military and propaganda methods,” the official website of Khamenei quoted him as telling a crowd of senior political officials on Wednesday. He set out five conditions for European powers if they want Tehran to stay in the nuclear deal after the US exit. Khamenei called on Europe, in his first condition, to “issue a resolution against the United States for violating Resolution 2231,” and considered that European powers “must promise they would not seek new negotiations on Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional Middle East activities.” The third condition is that Europe must face any sanctions against Iran and address the US sanctions. As for the fourth condition, Khamenei said: “Europe should fully guarantee Iran’s oil sales. In case Americans can damage our oil sales..., Europeans should make up for that and buy Iranian oil.” The last condition is that European banks should ensure trade with Iran. “European banks should safeguard trade with Iran. We don’t want to start a fight with these three countries (France, Germany and Britain) but we don’t trust them either,” he stated. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif revealed on Wednesday that experts from his diplomatic team had launched meetings with the European Union. Zarif pointed to his trip last week to Moscow, Beijing and Brussels to discuss the positions of the parties to the nuclear agreement. He spoke about “complex negotiations” with the Chinese and Russian “friends” at the expert level, noting that Tehran reached “broad plans,” as reported by ISNA. Commenting on the US state secretary’s recent statements, he said: “Pompeo’s comments were so hit-and-miss and far from civility and logic that are not even worth being answered.” Zarif said in response to a question about the prospects of American influence on the meetings of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA: “The Americans have left the agreement, so they are not members of the commission, and they cannot obstruct meetings like they did before.”