Rouhani hails ‘new chapter’ in efforts to revive JCPOA as parties speak with one voice

President Hassan Rouhani says the recent talks between Iran and the other signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement opened a “new chapter” in efforts to revive the multilateral deal as the participants in the Vienna meeting unanimously underlined the need to keep the agreement alive.

Rouhani made the remarks at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, one day after envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — agreed to establish two working groups, one of which would focus on how to get the US to lift the sanctions it imposed on Iran after leaving the deal in May 2018.

The other working group will also focus on how to get the Islamic Republic back into compliance with the limits set by the JCPOA on enrichment and stockpiles of enriched uranium.

A US delegation headed by the administration’s special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, was also in the Austrian capital, Vienna, where the talks where held, but it was not attending the discussions.

Rouhani said the US administration is today admitting explicitly to the failure of the so-called maximum pressure campaign that ex-American president Donald Trump initiated against Iran after pulling his country out of the agreement.

The Americans “explicitly say that ‘we have no choice but to negotiate.’ They say ‘if you (Iran) are ready, we are prepared to negotiate directly, and if you are not ready, we are prepared to negotiate indirectly with the P4 + 1 group.’ This means the victory of the Iranian nation, which we should not underestimate,” Rouhani said.

“In recent days, we have been witnessing a new chapter in the JCPOA’s revival [process]. All the countries that were committed to the JCPOA gathered in Vienna with different combinations, including the P4+1 and Iran as well as the P4+1 and the United States. But anyway, a single voice is heard today, which is everyone around the nuclear deal has come to the conclusion that there is no better solution than the JCPOA and no other way but the full implementation of the JCPOA. This is a new success for the Islamic Republic.”

Rouhani said his administration managed the country under the most severe sanctions and economic war in such a successful manner that made not only its friends, but also its enemies admit to the defeat of the “maximum pressure” campaign.

The administration’s success, the chief executive added, was achieved through the resistance and unity of the Iranian nation.

“The US wants to repent and return to the JCPOA. Now, we have to see how true it is and how faithful [the US] is to its words in practice. We do not want to make a final judgment now,” Rouhani said.

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