Iran’s president hits back at ‘rogue’ U.S. leadership
Rouhani blasts Trump’s speech to U.N. as ‘ignorant’
UNITED NATIONS — Iran fired back sharply at President Donald Trump at the United Nations on Wednesday, dismissing what it called his “ignorant, hateful and absurd rhetoric” and challenging his threats to tear up the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
A day after Trump denounced Tehran as a “rogue state” to the U.N. General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stood before the same gathering of global leaders and diplomats and aimed the insult back at him.
“It would be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” Rouhani said of the nuclear accord.
The disarmament deal “belongs to the international community in its entirety, and not only to one or two” governments, he said.
Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, had argued that the U.N.approved accord would destroy Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. Over the last two years, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, has repeatedly found Iran is complying with the pact.
But Obama also hoped that easing sanctions would draw Iran more into global trade and other systems, ending more than three decades of enmity and isolation, much as China has emerged as a major power.
Trump said Wednesday he has made a decision on whether he will certify to Congress by an Oct. 15 deadline that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal, as he already has done twice this year. But he refused to say what he has decided.
“I have decided,” Trump said three times in response to shouted questions from reporters before he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a hotel near the U.N. When pressed further, he smiled and said, “I’ll let you know.”
As recently as Tuesday, administration officials were preparing options for Trump to consider before next month’s deadline.
As a candidate he had vowed to abandon the deal, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded this weekend that Iran is in “technical compliance.”
Senior White House aides are divided on whether to pull out of the agreement or stay in it for fear that withdrawal would cause deep divisions with U.S. allies and potentially allow Iran to resume the nuclear program it was designed to stop.
Several of Trump’s close advisers have tried to convince him to stay for now to give them time to work with allies to toughen some terms of the agreement.
If Trump withholds certification — which he has hinted strongly he will — Congress will have 60 days to decide if U.S. sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program should be put back in place.
That would effectively end the U.S. side of the deal. It’s less clear if it would destroy the accord since it also was negotiated by France, England, Russia, China and Germany, and none of those governments supports ripping it up.
Trump excoriated Iran in his debut address to the General Assembly on Tuesday and all but called for regime change in Tehran.
Rouhani also minced no words in his address Wednesday.
He singled out “the new U.S. administration” in saying it would destroy its own credibility by abrogating international agreements.
Rouhani said Iran would not be the first to violate the agreement but that it would take unspecified steps if others did so.
“We never threaten anyone, but we do not tolerate threats from anyone,” he said. “We believe in dialogue based on equal footing and mutual respect.”