President: US Admission of Maximum Pressure Failure “Victory for Iran”

Rouhani made the remarks, addressing a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

He said the US administration is today admitting explicitly to the failure of the so-called maximum pressure campaign that ex-American president Donald Trump initiated against Iran after pulling his country out of the agreement.

The Americans “explicitly say that they have no choice but to negotiate. They say if you (Iran) are ready, we are prepared to negotiate directly, and if you are not ready, we are prepared to negotiate indirectly with the G4 + 1 group.’ This means the victory of the Iranian nation, which we should not underestimate,” Rouhani said.

“In recent days, we have been witnessing a new chapter in the JCPOA’s revival [process]. All the countries that were committed to the JCPOA gathered in Vienna with different combinations, including the G4+1 and Iran as well as the G4+1 and the United States. But anyway, a single voice is heard today, which is everyone around the nuclear deal has come to the conclusion that there is no better solution than the JCPOA and no other way but the full implementation of the JCPOA. This is a new success for the Islamic Republic.”

Rouhani said his administration managed the country under the most severe sanctions and economic war in such a successful manner that made not only its friends, but also its enemies admit to the defeat of the “maximum pressure” campaign.

The administration’s success, he added, was achieved through the resistance and unity of the Iranian nation.

“Returning to obligations means repentance in religion. The US wants to repent and return to the JCPOA. Now, we have to see how true it is and how faithful [the US] is to its words in practice. We do not want to make a final judgment now,” Rouhani said.

He made the remarks one day after envoys from Iran and the G4+1 group of countries — the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — agreed to establish two working groups, one of which would focus on how to get the US to lift the sanctions it imposed on Iran after leaving the deal in May 2018.

The other working group will also focus on how to get the Islamic Republic back into compliance with the limits set by the JCPOA on enrichment and stockpiles of enriched uranium.

A US delegation headed by the administration’s special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, was also in the Austrian capital, Vienna, where the talks where held, but it was not attending the discussions.

Iranian Government Spokesman Ali Rabiyee had on Tuesday reiterated his country’s position that the remedial measures adopted under the nuclear deal to retaliate the world powers’ disloyalty to the agreement will not be reversed by Iran until the US lifts all its sanctions.

“Implementation of the nuclear deal is as simple as its violation by the US. Iran will not reverse the steps it has taken in reduction of its obligations until the sanctions are completely lifted. No step-by-step plan has been announced by us and Iran has not accepted any such plan,” Rabiyee told reporters in a press conference in Tehran.

He referred to the today meeting of the nuclear deal Joint Commission in Vienna, and said, “Today, we are at the beginning of a plan to revive the nuclear deal and the US government has no choice but to end its law-breaking behavior and illegal sanctions.”

Rabiyee said that the agenda of the Tuesday meeting in Vienna is to lift the US cruel sanctions against Iran and studying ways that the other side fulfills its undertakings.

“What Iran will do is within the framework of the previous declaration, that is lifting of all US sanctions and all sanctions imposed on the Iranian people or re-imposed or relabeled on different pretexts after Trump came to power, and all these should be removed, and this is a clear logic, and all these measures should be verified,” he added.

“We welcome any US move to correct the wrong path of the past and return to the right path. No direct or indirect talks with no US sides has or will take place in Vienna or anywhere else. We will provide the G4+1 with the course of action that the US should pave and the comprehensive sanctions that it should lift,” Rabiyee said.

He also underlined Iran’s good progress in developing its peaceful nuclear program, and said, “So far, 6 complete IR2M cascades have been installed in Natanz. Also, two complete IR4 cascades and one complete IR6 cascade have been installed. The capacity of the installed centrifuge machines is currently 16,500 SWUs (Separative Working Units), while the maximum capacity before the nuclear deal stood at 13,000 SWUs.”