London ( CNN ) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters are trying to create `` an atmosphere of hysteria '' and `` fear-mongering , '' the Iranian foreign minister said Thursday . `` The only explanation that you can have here is that some people consider peace and stability as an existential threat , '' Javad Zarif told CNN 's Christiane Amanpour . `` Because a deal can not be threatening to anybody unless you want conflict and tension and mistrust and crises . '' In a highly controversial speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday , Netanyahu said that far from stopping Iran , the deal currently being negotiated in Switzerland would pave Iran 's way to nuclear weapons . Zarif told Amanpour that Netanyahu 's speech had `` no effect on the negotiating table . '' He spoke from Montreux , Switzerland , where Iran , the U.S. and five other countries are trying to hammer out an agreement that would trade sanctions relief for guarantees on Iran 's nuclear program . Zarif told Amanpour that he believed negotiators were `` very close '' to such a deal , but only if everybody avoided `` the path of confrontation . '' `` Everybody has to make tough choices . We have made the choice to engage in negotiations , although we believe that this entire exercise was unnecessary -- this was a manufactured crisis . '' `` People have been predicting for the past 20 years that Iran was a year away from making a bomb , and that prediction has been proven wrong time and again , '' Zarif said . `` But unfortunately that is a reality , that this hysteria that has been fanned continues to be fanned . And we try to resolve that problem . '' While the details of a definitive deal are still decidedly out of reach -- `` I 'm not prepared to negotiate on the air '' -- Zarif told Amanpour that he had hope for a `` win-win situation for all . '' `` The object of this exercise is to ensure that Iran 's nuclear program will always remain peaceful , and to remove all the restrictions that have been imposed on Iran , in our view unjustifiably , '' he said . `` You can either have sanctions and continue to seek that path of confrontation , or try to resolve this issue through negotiations and through an agreement . '' As Iran negotiates its nuclear future , a war against ISIS is being waged in neighboring Iraq . Tehran has supplied the Baghdad government with advisers , weapons , and ammunition , and one of its top generals , Qassim Sulaimani , has been sent to the country , according to the semiofficial Iranian FARS news agency . The Pentagon has suggested that Iranians could themselves be participating in the fight , which Zarif denied . `` We do not have forces on the ground in Iraq . We have always had advisers helping the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army , '' he said . `` We were the first to come to the assistance of the Iraqis , both in Baghdad as well as in Irbil , when the ISIS started moving in in massive numbers last summer . '' `` Everybody knows that without our assistance , things would have been different in Iraq , '' he added . `` We hope that this could unite Iraqis . '' The United States , which also has military advisers in Iraq and has launched an air campaign against ISIS , adamantly denies that it coordinates with Iran in the fight against their common enemy . `` This is a global threat , '' Zarif said . `` You see the implications in Europe , you see the fact that they are recruiting from Europe . So this is a global problem , it requires global cooperation and global work . '' Full transcript of Amanpour 's interview with Foreign Minister Zarif .
Netanyahu says a deal would open the way for Iran 's nuclear weapons . ISIS foreign minister says speech had `` no effect on the negotiating table ''