Rouhani to Attend UN General Assembly

EghtesadOnline: President Hassan Rouhani will soon head to New York to attend the high-level General Debate of the 74th United Nations General Assembly that is due to begin on Sept. 24, the government spokesman said.

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17 September 2019

"The trip is a good opportunity for bilateral or multilateral consultations and we hope Iran's rightfulness and strategic patience will be proven to all once again during this visit," Ali Rabiei told reporters in a press briefing on Monday, ISNA reported.

He stressed, however, that there will be no meeting between Rouhani and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, despite widespread speculations.

"An end to all sanctions is the necessary condition for the start of constructive diplomacy. We will only meet when we make sure people's problems will be resolved," Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.

Frictions between Iran and the US soared after Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal last year and reimposed sweeping sanctions on Tehran, arguing that the agreement needed to be renegotiated to cover other areas of western concern.

Despite the American "maximum pressure", Iran remained committed to JCPOA for a year in what Iranian officials described as "strategic patience" to allow time for solutions to be worked out to save JCPOA.

Nevertheless, when efforts by the remaining parties, particularly the European Union, failed to protect the country's interests under the deal, Tehran began to scale back its compliance in May.

Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have indicated over the past weeks that the US president is open to meeting Rouhani, possibly on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.

However, Iran has refused to enter talks as long as US economic pressure persists.

"We negotiated once under sanctions and will not negotiate under sanctions again," the Iranian spokesman stressed, referring to the protracted talks with the six world powers that resulted in the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the formal name of the nuclear deal) and lifting of international sanctions in 2015.

Rabiei noted that talks could have continued within the framework of the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany), but the US acted in violation of an international resolution, killing the chance for further engagement.