The former US Secretary of State has been quoted as saying that the Obama administration was under heavy pressure from certain countries in the Middle East to bomb the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The recent Oslo Forum 2017 in the Norwegian capital gathered together former US State Secretary John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, who played the main role in the finalization of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

In his Tuesday address to the 15th Annual International Retreat of Mediators and Peace Process Actors in Oslo Forum, Kerry referred to the difficult situation his country faced before the nuclear deal, which was finally signed in July 2015.

Kerry has been quoted by IRNA and Shargh reporters as saying, “We were moving toward a conflict quickly. There is no way to express it otherwise. The leaders in the region personally told me and President Obama that you should ‘bomb these guys.’ This is the only way to solve this problem. And we chose another way.”

He went on to say that Obama insisted the issue of Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved through negotiation rather than a military conflict.

Iran consented to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the world is now a safer place thanks to the deal, he added, according to IRNA.

“We are confident that Iran sticks to its commitments and others should also fulfil their JCPOA obligations,” he was quoted as saying.

Elsewhere in the Forum, the European foreign policy chief Mogherini also said that she was confident the United States would stick to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, despite its protestations to the contrary, as the deal is working.

“I am confident that the review in the United States will bring to wise decisions, which means keeping something that is working,” she told a news conference on the margins of the peace mediation conference in Oslo.

“In any case the European Union will guarantee that the deal keeps, that we stick to that … and that our policy of engagement with Iran continues.”