Iran ‘ready for Trump fallout’

It came as US lawmakers passed laws to renew sanctions on Iran for 10 years, underscoring their determination to play a strong role in Middle East policy no matter who occupies the White House.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, centre, waves to his well-wishers from his car during a public welcoming ceremony for him upon his arrival in Karaj, 35 kilometres west of the capital Tehran, Iran on November 16, 2016. Rouhani says his country will remain committed to a landmark nuclear deal with world powers regardless of the US presidential election result. Iranian Presidency Office via APShow less

TEHRAN // Iran’s two top leaders – its president and the country’s supreme leader – both sought on Wednesday to calm concerns over the future of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in the wake of Donald Trump’s election for US president

President Hassan Rouhani said regardless of the outcome of the US election, his country will remain committed and loyal to the deal, which put off the threat of Tehran developing atomic weapons.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran was indifferent to the result of the US vote, insisting the Iranian nation was “not worried” about the future and was ready for any fallout from the election.

Mr Trump’s much publicised criticism of the nuclear deal and his campaign vows to renegotiate the terms and increase enforcement of the deal has sent jitters across Iran.

“If a president is changed here and there, it has no impact on the will of Iran,” Mr Rouhani said on state TV from the city of Karaj, where he was visiting. “Based on the deal, we implement our commitment.”

Without mentioning Mr Trump by name, Mr Rouhani said that “the world is not under the will of a single individual and party. The reality of the world will impose many things on extremists”.

“Nobody should imagine it is possible to play with Iran,” he added.

The deal, which went into effect in January, forced Iran to pull back from the brink of nuclear weapons capacity in exchange for an end to many of the US and European sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy. Iran has denied that the sanctions affected its economy in any way.

On Tuesday, US lawmakers passed bills to renew sanctions on Iran for 10 years, underscoring their determination to play a strong role in Middle East policy no matter who occupies the White House.

The House of Representatives voted 419 to one for a 10-year reauthorisation of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), a law first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran’s energy industry and deter Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The Iran measure will expire at the end of 2016 if it is not renewed. It must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama in order to become law.

Although the Obama administration and other world powers had reached the nuclear agreement with Tehran last year, lawmakers said they wanted the ISA to stay in effect to send a strong message that the US will respond to provocations by Iran and give any American president the ability to quickly reinstate sanctions if Tehran violated the nuclear agreement.

The deal has been largely respected despite undiminished US-Iranian tensions throughout the Middle East, including their support for rival sides in Syria and Yemen’s civil wars.

Mr Trump’s exact plans on the nuclear deal are vague but any renegotiation would be difficult – Iran has no incentive to reopen talks over a deal it is satisfied with. And none of the other countries in the seven-nation accord has expressed interest in picking apart an understanding that took more than a decade of stop-and-go diplomacy and almost two full years of negotiations to complete.

Iran’s supreme leader, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, said in remarks on state TV that Iran was indifferent to Trump’s election victory.

“We neither mourn nor cheer because it makes no difference to us. We do not have any judgment on the election,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “We are also not worried. And we are ready for any possible incident.”

Meanwhile, an Iranian central bank official said Iran expects to see “more rationality” on the part of Mr Trump once he assumes the role of US president and leaves behind what was merely campaign rhetoric.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Frankfurt, Iran’s central bank vice governor Peyman Ghorbani said: “What has been said during the election [campaign] was for the election competition. We expect to see more rationality on the position that Trump is going to take after becoming president.”

Other Iranian bankers also said they did not expect long-term adverse effects from Mr Trump’s win, even though he ran for president opposing the landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

* Associated Press and Reuters