President: Iran to Keep Going Without JCPOA
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his cabinet will keep administering the country with or without the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which the US withdrew earlier this month.
In an address to a meeting of Iran’s senior officials with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on Wednesday evening, Rouhani said he is going to meet the leaders of China and Russia and to contact the British, French and German officials in the coming weeks to weigh plans for saving the JCPOA.
“If those five countries can secure the interests of our country in the JCPOA, particularly our economic interests, we will continue (implementing) the JCPOA without the US, otherwise, we will make the necessary decision and the country will be well administered with or without the JCPOA,” Rouhani added.
While the US may think that foreign currency issue and chaos in the currency market is Iran’s Achilles’ heel, the administration has already made arrangements to deal with any situation and meet demands for hard currency even in an absence of the JCPOA, he went on to say.
His comments came before Ayatollah Khamenei’s major remarks about the future of the JCPOA at the meeting.
The Leader underlined that “linking the settlement of the country’s problems, especially the economic issues, to the JCPOA and abroad is a grave mistake.”
US President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the JCPOA, which was reached in 2015 after around years of negotiations.
Following the US exit, Iran and the remaining parties -Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany- have launched talks to save the accord.
