With President Trump’s disdain for the 2015 agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear program threatening the pact’s survival, Iranian Presi…
North Korea, Iran and the mass flight of minority Muslims from Myanmar are a few of the bigger challenges that await more than 100 heads of state government as the annual United Nations General Assembly kicks off today in New York.
With President Trump’s disdain for the 2015 agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear program threatening the pact’s survival, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is likely to focus much of his time at the U. N. General Assembly this week with one main goal in mind: defending the controversial agreement.
During his highly anticipated speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday–along with several other planned meetings–Rouhani will likely argue that Iran has complied with the terms of the deal .
Rouhani, who began his second term as president in May, was largely responsible for spearheading negotiations in 2015 with the United States and other world powers that led Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Trump has frequently called the 2015 nuclear deal “the worst deal ever,” and has threatened to rip it up.
Although Trump’s administration has certified twice that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement, his administration has sent strong signals in recent weeks that it does not plan on certifying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal in October.
With tensions between the United States and Iran increasing over this, Rouhani is likely to spend much of his time defending the deal to other world leaders and attempting to show that Iran is abiding by it.
Already Rouhani has set off on this course. In an interview with CNN on Monday, Rouhani warned that “exiting such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America.” He also said he does not believe that “Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them.”
Rouhani told reporters Sunday as he arrived in New York that “the goal of this visit is to…deliver Iran’s voice to the world,” adding later that his strategy is “to have inclusive interaction with the world…”
This is Rouhani’s fifth U. N. General Assembly meeting.
