Iran should be immune against the sanction pressures by its enemies, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by leader's official website Wednesday.
"You should disarm the enemy with the sanction tools. The reason is if you look at the enemy's hands (to remove sanctions), the sanctions will remain," Khamenei told a large group of his visitors, Xinhua reported.
The Iranian officials and government should know that if they sit back over the "principles and ideals," it will help the enemy to advance further, Khamenei said.
The Iranian leader argued that the US officials said in the recent nuclear talks that even if Iran makes concessions over its nuclear issue, the sanctions will not be removed in full and overnight.
"Considering this reality, do you think we should trust the enemy?" he said, adding that "I am not against the negotiations, but I believe we should rely on the facts, not on the illusions."
Therefore, "the only way to limit the enemy's manoeuvr is to immune Iran against sanctions. This is the real meaning of resilience economy. To implement this is the main responsibility of the Iranian officials," he said.
Khamenei reiterated his earlier remarks about reducing dependency on oil revenues, saying that "We should rely on the nation and the local potentials, so that if the enemy did not remove the sanctions, the progress and the welfare of the people cannot be hurt."
Iran's economy is under the multilateral sanctions by the US and its European allies over the country's controversial nuclear program.
Talks between Iran and the P5+1 group resumed on Dec 17, 2014, just weeks after failing to meet a Nov 24 deadline for a comprehensive nuclear deal because of significant gaps over Iran's unranium enrichment abilities and how the sanctions should be removed.
Tehran and the world powers later agreed to extend their talks to July this year.
The next round of deputy-ministerial-level talks will be held on Jan 18 in Geneva.
