On Wednesday, president Rouhani said Iran’s third step to scale down commitments to the JCPOA will give a special boost to country’s nuclear energy organization activities. He voiced doubt that the country would reach an agreement with Europe in the few days left to the second deadline given to them to live up to their commitments to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA.
“The third step may not be striking apparantly, but it is of an extremely important nature, and will considerably accelerate the activities of the country’s nuclear energy organization,” Rouhani said, adding “in my opinion, this step is the most important one that we will take, and its impacts will be extraordinarily huge.”
He added that Iran would move forward and announce its measures to further reduce commitments as the third step in the coming days, seeing as Europe has not made any progress on living up to its own commitments. “Europe has another two-month deadline for negotiations, agreement, and a return to its commitments,” Rouhani claimed.
Referring to his telephone conversations with French President Emanuel Macron, Rouhani said “In our earlier conversations, there was a huge gap in our negotiations, but now we have a good understanding of each other. They know what we want, and we know what they want, and everything’s clear. In many instances, we have closed the gap between our views, but in some other cases, we still have our differences and still have not reached a final conclusion.”
Rouhani stated Iran has set up a five-month framework for its talks with the French side that would last until the year end, adding “France says they will talk to other European countries, as well as China, and the US, and they will make the necessary coordination. Our talks with France is in this regard, as the country represents the EU and the three signatories to the nuclear deal.”
Elsewhere, the president described US hawks, the racist regime of Israel, and some reactionary states in the Middle East region as three groups which do not want the relations between Iran and the US to be “fair” and “right”.
He said the day when relations between Iran and the US became fair and just, it would mean a “permanent death” for the Israeli regime, “because they are like foams on water and will fade away.” “Every time we wanted to do something, these three groups, which have unfortunately taken over the White House, would not allow it,” Rouhani said, noting that the reason the US pulled out of the JCPOA was because of the influence of these three groups over the White House.