Rouhani:

US sending messages to Iran and pressuring it

Rasa - President Hassan Rouhani says the US is constantly sending messages to Iran to begin negotiations and trying to pressure the Iranian people at the same time.

News ID: 439455

Date: 08 September 2018 - 20:09

RNA - The president on Saturday evoked memories of the Iraqi-imposed war in the 1980s, saying the Iranian nation will summon the same spirit to withstand economic hardship and US pressure with unity.

"Not a fortnight goes by without a new message coming for us, saying 'we want negotiations here and there and that we want to resolve the issues'," he said at the opening of festival in Tehran.

"Which one should we believe? Your soft messages, or your brutal acts? If you are truthful and like the Iranian nation, why are you pressuring them?" Rouhani said, addressing US leaders.

President Donald Trump pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in May and pledged to impose the most restrictive sanctions on Tehran in the belief that more economic pressure would force the country back to the negotiating table.

Rouhani said the US was waging an economic and media war against Iran, adding American leaders were wrong if they thought pressures would make the Islamic Republic bend.

"You think if you put pressure on our people for two months, three months, four months or a year, they will come to the streets with their hands up and say 'we have surrendered to America and the White House'. This is your fault; this is your mistake," he said.

The president touched on the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's eight-year war on Iran, saying Iran is in another battle now. "This is an economic, psychological and propaganda war and  the government is on the frontline of this war."

"First of all, I want everyone - all parties, groups, factions, forces and bodies - to known that today is not a day for complaints; it is not a day for rivalry, or God forbid, for revenge. Today we are all on the battlefield," he said.

"Disputes are before the war begins. When the war starts, we are all together," Rouhani said, adding the current US administration is in a dispute with not only Iran but also Washington's traditional allies.

In recent months, the US president has stepped up his hostile rhetoric against Iran. He has, however, signaled his willingness to hold talks with Iranian officials.

Iran has taken the United States to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and its decision to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

According to Press TV, Trump installed the first wave of sanctions, targeting Iran's financial, automotive, aviation and metals sectors, early last month and threatened that the second wave would “ratchet up to yet another level" in November.

E. Michael Jones, editor of the Culture Wars Online Magazine, said that the US is abusing its economic power by adopting a policy of sanctions against other nations and endangering the dollar.

"The United States now has poured 200 million people under sanctions. This is a tremendous abuse of the United States economic power.

"It is an abuse of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it is an abuse of SWIFT system, of the international exchange and it is going to lead toward action, which is going to mean the end of the dollar hegemony," he said.

"So, the United States largely because of its subservience to the Israel lobby is going to bring about the very end of the dollar system that they have created," he added.

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