A smiling Hassan Rouhani stepped on to the spiral staircase of the presidential palace to announce to an anxious nation the first nuclear deal reached with world powers in a decade – a major achievement that capped his first 100 days in office. Departing from the austere conference hall press events of his predecessors, and opting instead for a White House Rose Garden-style appearance, he declared that the Islamic Republic had won global powers’ recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium. While the US and its partners were putting the emphasis on how Iran had bowed to international demands, agreeing in the six-month interim Geneva deal announced on Sunday morning to significant curbs on its nuclear programme, the pressing task of Iran’s new president was to sell the deal at home, where hardliners are waiting to pounce on any hint of weakness.
Although the right to enrich was not explicitly stated in the deal, the fact that the accord allowed Iran to continue enriching at low levels was enough for Mr Rouhani, and appeared to keep intact the red lines set by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and ultimate decision maker in Iran. “World powers have recognised the nuclear rights of Iran,” declared Mr Rouhani. “The confirmation from the great powers is of huge value.” Billing it as a turning point for Iran – both internationally and at home – the centrist president, elected on the hope of ending Iran’s isolation and fixing a collapsing economy, made the most of the little sanctions relief offered by the Geneva agreement. Putting his own spin on the deal – and along the way directly contradicting American officials’ assertions – Mr Rouhani said the sanctions regime “had been broken” by the agreement, “whether others like it or not”. With the passage of time, he predicted, the cracks “will widen”. Peppering his words with the necessary references to pride and dignity for Iranians, for whom the nuclear programme is above all a testament to the technological prowess that the country has achieved, he pledged that the Islamic Republic would not seek nuclear weapons. He remained adamant, however, that no one could stop Iran from pursuing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In another sign of his media savvy as president, Mr Rouhani produced relatives and children of four scientists killed since 2010, part of a covert war against the nuclear programme. Each family was presented with a roll of honour. Interactive
Iran’s nuclear sites Iran nuclear sites Profiles of seven of the key nuclear sites around the country Mr Rouhani reserved some of his final words for the supreme leader, declaring his appreciation for the Ayatollah’s guidance and stressing that negotiators had worked within these guidelines. To be sure, the nuclear deal would not have been possible without the supreme leader’s consent, and his backing of what he has called “heroic flexibility”. It is this approval – he hailed the deal as a “success” on Sunday and had previously referred to negotiators as “the revolution’s children” – which has, until now at least, kept hardliners’ attacks on the nuclear negotiations in check. Iran’s state television, which reflects views of fundamentalists opposed to Mr Rouhani, echoed the supreme leader’s words, portraying the agreement as an achievement without referring to Iran’s concessions. But so crucial is the supreme leader to the negotiations, and so mysterious his views on how much more Iran is willing to concede, that many Iranians are cautious about what will happen in six months’ time, and whether a comprehensive agreement can be successfully negotiated. Mr Rouhani also called on Iran’s beleaguered business community, crippled by sanctions as much as the mismanagement of the previous administration of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, to see the agreement as a stepping stone, encouraging them to help revive the economy. “From now on it is your turn,” he said. “We prepared the ground.”