PRESIDENT Hassan Rouhani rejected any hopes of rewriting a nuclear deal with world powers yesterday, after the leaders of the United States and France called for a new pact covering Teheran’s missile programme and regional interventions.
“We have an agreement called JCPOA,” said Rouhani in a fiery speech, using the technical name for the 2015 deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
“It will either last or not. If JCPOA stays, it stays in full.”
He was responding to statements in Washington, DC, by French President Emmanuel Macron and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in which they proposed a new deal with tougher restrictions on Iran.
Trump called the existing accord “insane” and “ridiculous”, despite European pleas for him not to walk away, and demanded fresh curbs on Iran’s ballistic missile programme and support for militant groups in the Middle East.
Macron said the new agreement should include a settlement on Syria, where Iran backs President Bashar al-Assad.
In Iran, Rouhani responded by ridiculing Trump, saying: “You have no expertise in politics, law or international accords.
“A tradesman, a businessman, a high-rise builder, how can he judge about global issues?”
Iran has the support of all other parties to the accord, who say it is working and that Teheran has stuck to its commitments.
Moscow also reiterated its support, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying “we believe that no alternative exists” and demanding that Iran be involved in further discussions.
Iran has warned it will ramp up enrichment if Trump walks away from the accord — the next deadline for renewal comes up on May 12 — prompting a blunt warning from the US leader.
“They’re not going to be restarting anything. If they restart it, they are going to have big problems, bigger than they ever had before. And you can mark it down.”
He had said his predecessors should have made a deal that “covered Yemen, that covered Syria. No matter where in the Middle East, you see the fingerprints of Iran behind problems”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to press the case for staying in the agreement again when she visits Washington, DC, tomorrow. - AFP