President Hassan Rouhani attended a press conference Monday evening, with domestic and international media, discussing the most important issues and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s stances regarding regional and international issues.

Dr Rouhani referred to the enemies’ plots against Iran, saying, “We have handled a somewhat critical situation with our patience, wisdom and steadfastness and our enemies admit it”.

“Today, we can strongly announce that the plots of the United States, the Global Imperialism, Zionism and regional reactionaries to harm the Islamic Republic have ended and they all admit that we have handled the situation,” he said.

He continued, “Point-to-point inflation has reached 34 per cent, down from 52, and we expect the downward trend to continue until the end of the year”.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is in a very stronger position vis-à-vis political and international issues, said the President, adding, “At the United Nations, it was very clear to us that all major countries around the world believed that Iran has become stronger compared to last year”.

Our people were in very tough economic conditions in the past 18 months, he continued, saying, “The government worked tremendously hard in these 18 months to increase indices under heavy economic sanctions”.

Stating that the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under the pressures from domestic hardliners, the Zionist Regime and Saudi Arabia, he said, “The Usurper [Zionist] Regime and Saudi Arabia both admitted that they had done their best to urge the US to exit the deal”.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran acted wisely by not withdrawing from the deal, because they wanted to use it as a pretext to take Iran’s case to the UN Security Council with the aim of imposing international sanctions on Iran, so that the US would not be forced to carry the load itself,” said the President.

Dr Rouhani added, “Today, except for a couple of small countries, no government and country approves of the US move, and everyone is condemning it in a way, calling it unacceptable”.

The five remaining countries, that is the P4+1, were supposed to compensate for the US’ withdrawal, said Rouhani, adding, “Relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Russia and China is good and they have made a lot of efforts, but unfortunately, the three European countries did not live up to their commitments and did not do what they were required to”.

Dr Rouhani emphasised that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s actions have been based on the interests of the great Iranian nation, saying, “We began reducing our commitments every two months and the first step in reducing commitments was in the area of enrichment, which we exceeded the 300-kg limit”.

Dr Rouhani added, “Vis-à-vis heavy water, we announced a plan, but we did not reach an agreement with Europe, and we finally started the second phase of reducing our commitments, which was exceeding the enrichment level over 3.6 and now enrichment is about 4.5".

The President stated that in the third step we announced that we would not observe the research and development schedules set under the JCPOA, adding, "Today IR-6 centrifuges are in operation and UF-6 injection is being done and IR-4s and IR-2s are working and soon IR-9 will start working”.

Pointing out that IR-7 centrifuges work simultaneously with IR-9 and of course IR-8, and the third step was a major development that Iran has begun, Dr Rouhani emphasised, “If they return to their commitments using this opportunity, we can return to full compliance and if they continue the same path, we will take the next steps in this regard”.

To be updated...