Iran’s Rouhani Hopes Biden Will Return To Obama-Era Nuclear Deal While Calling Trump A ‘Tyrant’

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At a cabinet meeting televised Wednesday, Rouhani said the ball is “now in US court.”

“If Washington returns to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, we will also fully honor our obligations under the pact,” he said, referring to Trump, adding that “the era of a tyrant has come to an end and today is the last. day of his ominous reign. ”

With Biden – who was a member of the Obama administration that negotiated the original deal – takes office on Thursday, hopes of a rapprochement are high.

At Wednesday’s rally, Rouhani denounced Trump, saying his four years in office “have borne no fruit other than injustice and corruption and caused trouble for his own people and the world.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will speak in parliament in the capital Tehran on September 3, 2019.

What was in the nuclear deal?

Officially titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the groundbreaking agreement was designed to limit Iran’s civilian nuclear program and thus prevent the country from ever developing nuclear weapons.

The deal, struck in Vienna after two years of intense talks led by the Obama administration, was signed by Iran and six other countries in 2015.

Under the deal, the Iranian government agreed to three key things: reduce the number of centrifuges in the country by two-thirds, reduce the supply of enriched uranium and limit ongoing enrichment to 3.67%, an amount sufficient for energy supply , but not enough to build an atomic bomb.

In addition, Iran had to restrict uranium research and development and grant inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certain access to its nuclear facilities.

In exchange for compliance, all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting the country’s stagnant economy with international markets.

Trump left the deal in 2018, although the agreement itself still exists, with Iran, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and Russia all still parties to it. However, since Washington walked out, Iran has increased uranium enrichment beyond the bounds of the deal, raising concerns that Tehran could pursue a nuclear weapons program in the future.

Biden’s move

Biden has expressed a desire to return to the 2015 deal by writing to CNN last year that Trump “recklessly discarded a policy that worked to keep America safe and replaced it with one that exacerbated the threat.”

“I will provide Tehran with a credible way back to diplomacy,” the then-candidate wrote in September. “If Iran strictly adheres to the nuclear deal again, the United States would rejoin the deal as a starting point for further negotiations.”

Despite this, some feared that developments in the last months of the Trump administration could bind Biden’s hands as both the US and Israel increased pressure on Iran, potentially undermining future diplomatic pleas.
In November, a top Iranian scientist was murdered near Tehran, in an operation that the government blamed on Israel, while in late December, U.S. B-52 bombers with nuclear capability were flown to the Middle East when defense officials spoke of the potential for a conflict a year after Soleimani’s death.
While Iran announced this month that it had resumed uranium enrichment to 20% purity and seized a South Korean-flagged chemical tanker in the Persian Gulf, the anniversary passed without any conflict between the US and Iranian forces, causing the door was opened to the kind of diplomacy apparently welcomed by Rouhani this week.

CNN’s Steve George, Ramin Mostaghim and Mostafa Salem contributed to the reporting.

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