‘Violating intl. agreements stokes chaos in world’

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says violation of international agreements reached among countries will stoke chaos and lead to bullying and use of military force in the world.

Rouhani made the remarks on Tuesday while addressing a group of American foreign policy experts in New York where he is attending the 72nd annual session of the UN General Assembly.

“When countries sit together for months and negotiate every line and sentence and word of an agreement for days and months and reach a final deal and then that deal is endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, it means all countries taking part in the negotiations are committed [to that agreement],” the Iranian president said.

He added that if international accords were supposed to be violated because an individual does not like them, no one would seek to find a solution to global issues through diplomacy and “this will amount to inviting the world to chaos, muscle-flexing and [use of] military power.”

Rouhani emphasized that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has in all its reports verified Iran’s compliance with its commitments, including those related to Arak heavy water reactor, under the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was clinched by Iran and the P5+1  group of countries in 2015.

Rouhani expressed hope that no party to the nuclear deal would violate the JCPOA, saying that in case of possible US withdrawal from the agreement, Iran would reveal its countermeasures in due time.

Iran’s chief executive emphasized that if the US pulled out of the nuclear deal, it would cement unity among the Iranian nation and the whole world would witness who is violating an international treaty.

Therefore, Rouhani said, Iran will lose nothing, but it is the United States that will suffer most, because “we have prepared ourselves for every contingency.”

“If the Americans implement the deal completely, it will mean that it is possible to trust them and hold talks with the US on other issues in the future. However, if the US violates [the JCPOA], it is obvious that any negotiations with the US on other issues will bear no fruit and will be futile,” the Iranian president pointed out.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has desperately sought a pretext to scrap or weaken the nuclear deal and get rid of the limits the deal imposes on the US ability to pursue more hostile policies against Iran.

Delivering his maiden speech while addressing the 72nd annual session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said the internationally-negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran was an “embarrassment” to the United States, raising the question whether he intends to stay in the accord.

The Republican president described the Iran nuclear agreement as “the worst and most one-sided transaction the US has ever entered into,” a characterization he often used during his presidential campaign.

However, Washington’s European allies seek to prevent the collapse of the deal and are stepping up efforts to convince Trump not to abandon the accord.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly session on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that scrapping the nuclear agreement with Iran would be a “grave error.”

“To reject it now without proposing anything else would be a grave error, and not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where the risk of an infernal conflagration cannot be excluded,” Macron added.

He stated that he had made this clear to Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he met with them on Monday.