Rouhani: I Instructed the Negotiation Team to Leave the Table at Least Twice in Lausanne

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, stated that he told the Iranian nuclear negotiation team 'multiple times' during the talks in Vienna and Geneva, and 'at least twice' in Lausanne, Switzerland, to leave the negotiation table if the Western side does not accept Iran's conditions. In a speech on Thursday, August 1, he said that during the negotiations in Lausanne, he told Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif 'to leave the negotiation table and return.' He added, 'Many times in Geneva and Vienna in the past months and in recent negotiations, we consulted, and I said if they do not accept, leave the negotiation table and return to Tehran tonight.' John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, mentioned in an interview last Monday that he had left the negotiation table three times. In response, Abbas Araghchi, a senior member of the Iranian negotiation team, stated on Wednesday that 'we also left the negotiation table more than ten times.' He emphasized, 'The nuclear negotiations have been very tense, and at times we faced serious obstacles, and perhaps two days before the agreement, we were not sure we would reach an agreement.' Rouhani further stated, 'On June 14, 2013, the people decided that if the centrifuges spin and the wheel of life does not spin, it will also stop.' He stressed, 'It is a mistake for anyone to see the entire country and the lives of people only in the spinning of centrifuges.' In his speech on Thursday, Rouhani also referred to Western sanctions against Iran, saying, 'We were heading toward a system of stone age and using currency exchange and brokerage.' The President of Iran added, 'You cannot live with this system; they had locked everything down, and a blind, wrong, oppressive, and inhumane sanction had been imposed against us.' He also mentioned some achievements of the Vienna nuclear agreement, including the lifting of sanctions and, according to him, Iran's exit from 'the dangerous subtitle of a movement against global peace and security' with UN Security Council Resolution 2231. He added, 'These are correct, but it is even higher than this... The agreement sent the message to the world that weapons and threats should be laid down forever.' The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2231 on Monday, July 29, six days after the official announcement of the agreement in Vienna, confirming the nuclear agreement between Tehran and six world powers. According to this resolution, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, Iran will limit its nuclear program. This resolution also allows for the reinstatement of UN sanctions if Iran violates the final agreement's commitments over the next ten years.