Hassan Rouhani said that internal factors, alongside external factors, encouraged Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.
Hassan Rouhani says that right on the verge of the final agreement, suddenly a message was sent from the US to Kerry to stop the negotiations and return. Kerry had told Zarif, ‘I don’t understand what happened; everything was finished.’ This delay caused us to finalize the JCPOA on July 14, 2015, instead of December 2014. Before that, Mr. Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, came to Tehran after a trip to the US. He said, ‘I was in the US, and in Congress, constantly, either the Saudis come and go, or the Israelis, or the MEK. They told me that these parties will not let you reach a final agreement.’ Therefore, the external factors that were already active joined hands with internal factors and encouraged Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.
The year 2019 was my last trip to New York because in 2020, due to COVID-19, the General Assembly meeting was not held at all. In 2019, there was a lot of effort for me and Trump to meet each other. Chancellor Merkel came to New York from Germany, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, came to New York despite internal issues, and Macron was there too. They had come for the P5+1 summit with Iran in 2019, but it didn’t happen.
