Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday said that the next US leader must accept Tehran’s demands, ruling out compromise as US President Donald Trump vies for re-election.
“We are not a bargaining chip in US elections and domestic policy,” Rouhani said in a virtual address to the UN General Assembly. “Any US administration after the upcoming elections will have no choice but to surrender to the resilience of the Iranian nation.”
Tensions have soared between Iran and the US under Trump, who pulled out of a nuclear accord negotiated by then-US president Barack Obama and slapped sweeping sanctions on the country.
Photo: Reuters
Former US vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s rival in Nov. 3 elections, staunchly backed the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday ruled out any renegotiation of the 2015 accord, which he had brokered over exhaustive talks with then-US secretary of state John Kerry.
“The United States can impose neither negotiations nor war on us. Life is hard under sanctions. However, harder is life without independence,” Rouhani said. “And for the world: Today is the time to say ‘no’ to bullying and arrogance. The era of dominance and hegemony is long over. Our nations and children deserve a better and safer world based on the rule of law.”
On Monday, Trump ramped up efforts by saying that he was imposing “UN” sanctions over Iranian contraventions of an arms embargo — defying virtually the entire UN Security Council, which says that he has no such authority.
The Trump administration said that the US remains a “participant” in the 2015 deal, as it was listed as such in a resolution that blessed Obama’s diplomatic efforts — meaning that Washington can still “snap back” sanctions for breaches.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who last year tried unsuccessfully to introduce Trump and Rouhani, was unambiguous in his opposition to Trump’s assertion.
“We will not compromise on the activation of a mechanism that the United States is not in a position to activate on its own after leaving the agreement,” Macron said in his recorded speech. “This would undermine the unity of the Security Council and the integrity of its decisions, and it would run the risk of further aggravating tensions in the region.”
Trump made clear in his own address to the UN that the US was out of the nuclear deal, saying: “We withdrew from the terrible Iran nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.”
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