Rouhani doubles-down on no talks under sanctions position

GULF COUNTRIES - In Brief 25 Sep 2019 by Justin Alexander

In his address at the UN General Assembly, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, very firmly reiterated his position that Iran would not negotiate with the US while sanctions remain in place (video - substantive comments start around minute 5). The gist of his argument was that there is no point negotiating on a new deal if the US is ignoring the old one, and Europe has failed to mitigate the US withdrawal from the JCPOA even though Iran stuck fully with the deal for the first year of renewed sanctions. He called the sanctions "merciless economic terrorism" and said Iran will never forget or forgive them. The firmness of his rhetoric increased our sense that a deal isn't imminent, although we also think that all the main parties to the dispute have good reasons not to escalate. Rouhani's address included a clear threat that "a single blunder could fuel a big fire".Since France started its mediation effort at the G7 last month, there had been indications from both Iran and the US that they might be willing to talk and the clear intention was for Trump and Rouhani to meet this week, which would be the first presidential meeting between the two countries since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and Rouhani and Zarif have this week been reiterating a willingness to make additional committments, such as allowing more intrustive UN nuclear inspections. President Macron clearly thought a meeting was still possible, even after the Abqaiq attacks (his UN address is here, for yestarday evening, see mins 6-10). It is, therefore, confusing why Iran has doubled-down on the precondition to not talk under sanctions, as it isn't foolish enough to think that Trump would lift sanctions wi...

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