Hassan Rouhani Encouraged Internal Factors Alongside External Factors to Persuade Trump to Withdraw from the JCPOA

Hassan Rouhani, along with internal factors, encouraged Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.

Hassan Rouhani says that just on the verge of reaching a final agreement, once the US sent a message to Kerry to stop negotiations and come back. Kerry told Zarif, ‘I don’t understand what happened. Everything was settled, but this delay caused us to finalize the JCPOA in 2015 instead of 2014. Before that, Mr. Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, came to Tehran after a trip to the US. He said to me, ‘I was in the US Congress, and either the Saudis, Israelis, or Mujahideen-e Khalq would come and go. They told me that they won’t let you reach a final agreement.’ Therefore, foreign actors who were already active, along with internal factors, joined forces and encouraged Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.

In 2019, my last trip was to New York because in 2020, due to the coronavirus, the General Assembly session was not held at all. In 2019, great efforts were made for me and Trump to meet. Chancellor Merkel from Germany came to New York, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK also came despite domestic problems. Macron was also there. They had come for the UN General Assembly in 2019 to meet with the Iranian leaders, but it didn’t happen.