Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Leading cleric says Iran should not trust Europe
Demonstrators shout anti-US and Israel slogans at rallies
ANKARA: A member of Iran’s clerical elite said yesterday Europeans could not be trusted, after President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran would remain in a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers even after the US pulled out.
US president Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that Washington was leaving the deal under which Iran curbed its nuclear programme, saying it was one-sided and he would reimpose sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the accord.
“America cannot do a damn thing. They have always been after the toppling of Iran’s regime and this exit is in line with that aim,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said in a televised address to worshippers at Tehran University.
State TV aired footage of demonstrators shouting slogans against the US and Israel at rallies in Tehran and other cities and towns nationwide after Friday prayers.
They chanted, “Mr Trump, you cannot do a damn thing” and “We fight. We die. We don’t surrender” in streets festooned with anti-US and anti-Israeli banners and posters.
Both hardline conservatives and relative moderates in the Islamic Republic’s leadership condemned Trump’s hawkish approach to Iran, with frustration growing among ordinary Iranians at the prospect of economic hardships as the result of new sanctions.
“These European signatories (to the deal) also cannot be trusted… Iran’s enemies cannot be trusted,” Khatami said, as hardline protesters urged the government not to “repeat the same mistake” by re-en- tering negotiations.
Germany, France and Britain have reaffirmed their commitment to the deal but, in a bid to bring Washington back into it, want talks to be held with Rouhani’s government in a broader format covering Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its role in Middle Eastern conflicts, including in Syria and Yemen.
Rouhani and his ministers have sought to reassure Iranians that their oil-reliant economy can withstand a return to pressures sure to follow Trump’s rejection of the deal clinched under his predecessor, Barack Obama, after years of negotiations.
Iran’s economy has continued to struggle despite easing of sanctions from early 2016. In December, Iranians staged nationwide demonstrations over poor living standards, calling on Rouhani and Shia clerical leaders to step down.
A Kremlin aide disclosed that Russian president Vlad- imir Putin will meet Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Monday to discuss the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Yuri Ushakov, the aide, added that Moscow was working closely with Tehran to prevent it from leaving the deal, seen as vital for global stability.
The pragmatist Rouhani championed the nuclear deal as the way to end Iran’s international isolation, so if it falls apart he could face a career-threatening backlash.
It could leave Iran’s hardliners, including the elite Revolutionary Guards, unchallenged at home and enable greater Iranian assertiveness abroad that inflames tensions in the Middle East.
Hardliners are placing their faith in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on major matters of state. – Reuters/African News Agency (ANA)