Iran President Hassan Rouhani: ‘Rogue newcomers’ in the Trump administration shouldn’t destroy nuclear deal

“It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics — the world will have lost a great opportunity,” Rouhani said in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. “By violating its international commitments, the new U.S. administration only destroys its own credibility and undermines international confidence in negotiating with it.”

“We are unmoved by threats and intimidation. We believe in dialogue and negotiation based on equal footing and mutual respect,” Rouhani added.

On Tuesday, President Trump spoke before the international body for 40 minutes and called out Iran on its faux democracy.

“The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos,” Trump said.

“The longest suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are, in fact, its own people. Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian lives, its oil profits go to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors.

“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever and the day will come when the people will face a choice. Will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed, and terror? Or will the Iranian people return to the nation’s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture, and wealth where their people can be happy and prosperous once again?” Trump added.

Rouhani claimed his government is not one of tyranny and warned the U.S. from calling it out in the future.

“We never condone tyranny and we always defend the voiceless. We never threaten anyone. But we do not tolerate threats from anyone,” Rouhani said. “They [the U.S.] have imposed sanctions really against themselves and now they feel betrayed. We were not deceived nor did we cheat or deceive anyone. We have ourselves determined our extent of our nuclear program, we never sought to achieve deterrence through weapons.”