Rouhani says ‘easy to resolve’ Iran-us issue
President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday tensions with the United States are “very easy to resolve” provided that the next US administration returns to its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “As we have repeatedly emphasized, the policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is commitment for commitment, action for action, tension reduction for tension reduction, respect for respect and international obligations for international obligations. If there is such a will in the future rulers of the United States, I think it will be very easy to resolve the problem,” Rouhani told a cabinet meeting in Tehran.
Rouhani called on the incoming administration of Joe Biden to “explicitly condemn” Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign as well as “compensate for wrong policies pursued” over the past four years.
“We hope that the next US administration will, as its first steps, explicitly condemn Trump’s policies towards Iran along with its anti-human rights and terrorist acts, and will [work to] make up for the wrong policies pursued by the previous administration over the past four years,” the Iranian president said.
Rouhani stressed that Tehran and Washington can both decide and return to the point they were in January 20, 2017, when Trump took office.
If Iran and the US, he added, could find a path back to “the situation on Jan 20, 2017, it could be a huge solution for many issues and problems.”
The Trump administration unleashed a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran in May 2018, when it left the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The deal limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
However, the pressure campaign has failed in its objectives, including renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal to cover the Islamic Republic’s missile program and its influence in the Middle East.
In an effort to pressure European parties to the deal to find a way around the sanctions, Iran has gradually abandoned the limits of the nuclear deal.
Biden has signaled a will to return his country to the JCPOA as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.
Rouhani also lashed out at Trump for committing “the worst crimes in American history” against independent nations including Iran.
“This person committed inhuman, terrorist and cruel acts against the Iranian people even during the coronavirus pandemic, and increased the pressure on our country day by day to the extent that the ruling team in the White House objected to a bid by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to grant [Iran] a $5-billion loan to be spent on medical needs and the fight against the coronavirus,” he said.
The president noted that Iranians have throughout its history recorded two “sacred defenses”; one against the 1980s Iraq-imposed war, and the other against the economic war during “the era of Trumpism,” and they have emerged victorious in both cases.
He appreciated the Iranian people for stepping up their resistance over the past three years, adding that “one of the great manifestations of the Iranian people’s victory and the enemy’s definitive defeat in this economic war is the end of the Trumpism era.”