“We are in favour of dialogue and logic but the claims of a side that says it would drag us to the negotiating table are empty,” Rouhani told a gathering of artists and culture experts in Tehran. “We are not prepared to go ahead with such a negotiation even if all the powers of the world stand against us.”
Rouhani extolled the virtues of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) which has been under attack by hardliners in Iran. He stated if it was not for the landmark deal, Iran would not be self-sufficient in production of petrol, a claim that had also been made by Iran's oil minister in February.
“Because of this agreement, huge investments were made in the country and massive projects were inaugurated, for instance the Persian Gulf Star Refinery because of which we became self-sufficient in benzene,” Rouhani responded to the critics. “It was JCPOA that sets the conditions for the competition of Persian Gulf Star, the project has begun before JCPOA but why was it not inaugurated?”
Rouhani went as far as claiming that the construction wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which was working on the project, told him that the JCPOA allowed the refinery to be completed.
“Today the enemy has come near; it is a blessing for the IRGC to march its forces to confront such an enemy,” Salami said as he introduced two of his deputies in ceremony in Tehran on Sunday. ”When the threat is distant, then we think about it in strategic terms but when the threat nears, we also become active operationally.”
“We are not after war but we are not scared of war either,” he added
The JCPOA, signed in 2015, has been in effect since January 2016. Its implementation saw the return of multinational oil and gas companies to Iran that year, which were due to invest in projects like the largest natural gas field, the South Pars Gas Field. However, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, re-imposing economic sanctions which have struck a heavy blow to Iran's economy.
In swift response, France’s Total and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) suspended investment on the gas field, after the United States threatened to impose sanctions on companies which do business in Iran.
The South Pars project had been slated for billions of dollars of investment from Total, the CNPC and Iran-based Petropars. Despite the withdrawal of foreign investment, Iran launched new phases of the South Pars project on March 12.
Rouhani has faced sustained pressure from Iranian hardliners, who attribute Iran's tough times on his appeasement of Western powers. With the withdrawal of the United States from the deal and threats of US sanctions for European companies that do business with Iran — with European powers seemingly powerless to prevent this from happening — the deal is believed by many to have lost benefit for Iran.
Iran suspended two articles of the JCPOA in early May and has warned the European and other powers that if they do not aid Iran in its banking and oil sectors in 60 days, then Tehran would suspend further articles of the deal.
However, Iranian ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad told BBC Radio on Saturday that Iran had been "faithfully implementing" the JCPOA agreement while other signatories failed to uphold their share of the bargain. He said that the issuing of "unnecessary provocations" from the United States, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, made the issuing of the 60-day ultimatum necessary. He added that if the two-month period is not enough to sufficiently resolve the issue, Iran would start its "next steps", emphasizing that its actions would be within the boundaries of the JCPOA.
