TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that peace with Iran will be “mother of all peace” and war with Iran will be “mother of all wars”.

Rouhani made the remarks as he visited the Foreign Ministry for a meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif, who was sanctioned by the U.S. on July 31, his deputies and other top ministry officials.

“Security for security, peace for peace. You cannot harm our security and expect security for yourself. Peace for peace and oil for oil,” Rouhani said in an open reference to the administration of Donald Trump which has launched an economic war on Iran by banning a total ban against Iran’s oil exports and deployed aircraft carriers, B-52 bombers, F-22 fighter jets, and tens of hundreds of troops in the Persian Gulf region under the pretext that it wants to counter possible threats by Iran.

Rouhani added, “Today, you are aware that we are powerful and capable to do what we have said. You are aware that we shot down your modern drone by missile which was built by Iran in the Defense Ministry of the 11th and 12th governments and shot precisely by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.”

Rouhani tells the Trump administration: “Today, you are aware that we are powerful and capable to do what we have said. You are aware that we shot down your modern drone by missile which was built by Iran."

The IRGC shot down an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone on June 20 after it breached Iran’s airspace. The IRGC brought the drone down by firing a surface-to-air missile at it.

“Constructive interaction is basis of foreign policy”

Rouhani also said that constructive interaction is a difficult thing to do and is the basis of foreign policy.

“Confrontation with the world is the easiest thing to do. Insulting and speaking against the world is not a skill,” he said.

“Foreign minister represents the entire Iran”

Pointing to U.S. sanctions on Zarif, Rouhani said that the Iranian foreign minister is more “popular” and “powerful” than ever.

“You have been mistaken if you sanctioned our foreign minister to cause division,” he said.

Foreign minister is the “representative of the entire Iranian nation and not a group or faction.”

In separate statements on July 31, the U.S. Treasury and State Department announced imposition of sanctions against Zarif, a move which was interpreted as a total rejection of diplomacy repeatedly claimed by the Trump administration.

“Trump was right that Iranians never lost a negotiation”

Rouhani also said that Trump was right when he said that “Iranians never lost a negotiation” in a tweet message in July.

He noted that Trump was deceived by his team and he quit the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

Rouhani added that the Trump administration does not deserve talks for his economic terrorism against Iran.

“They said that they seek to negotiate with Iran without any condition. However, they would have abandoned economic terrorism and become polite if they had been wise enough and sought to negotiate,” the president stated.

Rouhani insisted that the U.S. must remove all sanctions if it seeks to negotiate with Iran.

Rouhani called the U.S. sanctions against Iran an instance of “economic terrorism” and branded those who enforce such sanctions as “criminal” whom Tehran cannot negotiate with.

“If America wants negotiations it must lift sanctions before anything else so that it would not be a criminal against the rights of humans. We cannot talk to a criminal,” Rouhani remarked.
 
The president told Trump, “If you want the path laid out for negotiation you must repent.”

Pointing to Iran’s action in reducing nuclear commitments, he said the timing of the move was right and nobody can criticize Iran legally and politically.

On May 8, exactly one year after the U.S. abandoned the multi-nation nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran said its “strategic patience” is over and announced a partial withdrawal from some aspects of the pact, saying that the country would no longer adhere to some of the limits on its nuclear activities. It also threatened to step up uranium enrichment if an agreement is not made within 60 days to protect it from the sanctions’ effects.

In follow-up to that deadline, on July 7 Iran announced that it has started enriching uranium to a higher purity than the 3.67% as the Europeans missed the 60-day deadline to devise a concrete mechanism to protect the country from the U.S. sanctions.

“Success in The Hague was greater than Mosaddegh’s”

Rouhani also said the ruling against sanctions in The Hague was more important than the vote for Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh for nationalization of Iranian oil in his battle against Britons in 1952.

Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s government nationalized Iran’s oil industry in April 1951. In September 1951, Britain froze Iran’s sterling assets and banned export of goods to Iran. It challenged the legality of the oil nationalization and took its case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

In July 1952, the ICJ ruled in favor of Iran by a vote of 9 to 5 that it had no jurisdiction in the British-Iranian dispute over oil nationalization.

Rouhani said, “Certain people just see failures. We achieved a success in The Hague court greater than Mosaddegh’s success.”

The Hague-based UN’s top court ordered the U.S. in October 2018 to ease some sanctions against Iran, including those related to the supply of humanitarian goods and the safety of civil aviation.

The ruling was made in response to a plea from Tehran after Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and re-imposition of sanctions against Iran.

“Answering to Obama’s phone call accelerated Geneva agreement”

Rouhani also said that his answer to a phone call by President Barack Obama accelerated the process of reaching the Geneva agreement in 2013.

On 24 November 2013, the Joint Plan of Action also known as the Geneva interim agreement was a pact signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries [China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany] in Geneva.

NA/PA