RFERL:

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has elaborated on his disappointment with Europe during an October 17 meeting with a group his website has described as Iran's "academic elites and prominent scholars."

"We should look East, not West. Pinning our hope on the West or Europe would belittle us as we would beg them for favor and they would do nothing," Khamenei told the group which included Iranian academics returning from various Western countries.

Instead, Khamenei said that Iran should look East, "where countries are taking quick steps on their roads to growth," The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted him as saying on Wednesday.

Khamenei had suggested earlier to President Hassan Rouhani that his government should abandon hope in Europe's initiatives to save the nuclear deal with the West or help Iran's failing economy to improve.

European states promised to save the nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after the United States withdrew from the agreement in May.

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