Rouhani: US trying to change clerical regime
Rules out possibility of talks with Washington
Dubai - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States on Wednesday of plotting to use economic pressure to overthrow the Islamic republic’s clerical establishment, and ruled out the possibility of talks with Washington.
“Iran is in economic and psychological war with America and its allies. Their aim is to change the regime but their wish will not come true,” Rouhani said in a speech in the northern province of Gilan.
US-Iranian tensions resurged after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of world powers’ 2015 agreement with Iran that curbed its disputed nuclear activity. Trump said the deal was flawed as it did not curb Iran’s ballistic missile programme or support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran that were lifted in 2016 under the deal. The renewed US clampdown caused a crash of Iran’s currency, rampant inflation and a flight of foreign investors desperately needed by Tehran to modernise its economy.
The other signatories to the deal - Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China - oppose the reinstatement of US
financial and oil sanctions and have sought to salvage the 2015 deal by finding non-dollar ways to conduct business with Tehran.