End sanctions as first step, Iran tells US
President Hassan Rouhani told the US on Tuesday to take the first step by lifting all sanctions against Iran, a day after US President Donald Trump said he was open to a meeting.
Trump said on Monday he was ready to meet his Iranian counterpart within weeks, in a potential breakthrough reached during the G7 summit in the French seaside resort of Biarritz.
Iran’s economy has been battered by US sanctions imposed after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US in May 2018 from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between the Islamic republic and world powers.
“The step is to retreat from sanctions.
“You must retreat from all illegal, unjust and wrong sanctions against the nation of Iran,” Rouhani said in a speech aired live on state television.
“The key for positive change is in the hands of Washington,” he said, because Iran had already ruled out ever doing what worries the US the most – building an atomic bomb.
“If honestly this is your only concern, this concern has already been removed” through a fatwa issued by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian president said.
“We don’t intend to make an atomic bomb – our military doctrine is based on conventional arms.”
Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2003 and has reiterated it several times since.
“So take the first step. Without this step, this lock will not be unlocked,” Rouhani said at a Tehran event marking the start of work on a housing project.
In Biarritz, French President Emmanuel Macron said the conditions for a meeting between Trump and Rouhani in the next few weeks had been created through intensive diplomacy and consultations.
Trump, speaking at the final news conference of the G7 summit, said he would certainly agree to that.
He said the timeline proposed by Macron was realistic.
Trump was confident that Rouhani would be in favour.
“I think he’s going to want to meet. I think Iran wants to get this situation straightened out,” he said.
Rouhani has indicated he is open to holding talks with the US, but this approach has been criticised by ultraconservatives in the Islamic republic.
In his speech, Rouhani said his government’s policy of constructive interaction with the world was in line with the supreme leader’s approach of extensive interaction.
But he stressed the US had to “retreat from their mistakes” and return to commitments made under the nuclear deal.
“Our path is clear – if they come back to their commitments we, too, will fully act on our commitments.
“If they do not come back to their commitments, we will continue our path.”
But he said he was not looking for photo opportunities.
The possible meeting between Rouhani and Trump was blasted as a photo opportunity on Tuesday on the front page of the Javan newspaper close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. –