US election results won’t affect Iran policies: Rouhani

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says the results of the United States presidential election will have no impact on the Islamic Republic’s policies.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won more than 270 electoral votes in the 2016 presidential election on Wednesday, enough to make him the 45th president of the United States even as vote counting continued in a number of states.

“The position of the United States has been weakened within the international community and in the world’s public opinion as a result of wrongful policies, and a wider gap with the global community and Europe will further harm that position,” President Rouhani said on Wednesday, referring to the potential prospect of a Trump presidency distancing the US from the world.

The Iranian chief executive added that Washington cannot continue to spread Iranophobia as forcefully as before in order to win international consensus against the Islamic Republic.

“The Islamic Republic’s policy of constructive interaction with the world and breaking up nuclear sanctions, has placed Iran’s economic ties with all countries on an improving and irreversible course,” he noted. 

Rouhani further said a nuclear agreement negotiated with Iran under the outgoing US administration is not a deal with a single country or a single government.

The deal has been reflected in a UN Security Council Resolution, and therefore, cannot be overturned on the back of one government’s decision, Rouhani added.

The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was struck between Iran on the one side, and the US, France, China, Britain, Russia, and Germany on the other in June 2015. 

‘US must still honor JCPOA’

Also reacting to the US election results, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a visit to Romania that the Islamic Republic expected the US president-elect to honor the JCPOA.

“It is our norm not to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries,” Zarif said, commenting on Trump’s win. 

“Since Iran and the US have no political relations, what is important is that America’s next president is bound by the multilateral commitments of the JCPOA,” he said, referring to the nuclear deal. 

“We are certain the international community would expect the same thing from the United States of America,” Iran's top diplomat said.

Ever since the deal was struck, its opponents in the US Congress have been threatening that a future US administration opposed to the agreement would scrap it. 

Trump had threatened he would “tear up” the JCPOA or try to renegotiate its terms if he was to be elected president. 

Back in July, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said, “We will not violate the JCPOA, but if the opposite side violates it - as US presidential candidates are currently threatening to tear up the JCPOA - if they tear up the JCPOA, we will burn it.”

In practice, however, JCPOA runs little risk of being scrapped out of hand by any level-headed American government as it has been endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, meaning that it has effectively become international law.

Zarif said the president of the US should “grasp the realities of the world today and connect his policies with those realities.” 

‘Wrongful US policies behind Mideast crises’

In another development, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi also reacted to Trump's presidential election win, saying that Washington’s policies and approaches over the past decades have brought about “an unpleasant, bitter experience” for the Iranian government and people.

“What is important to Iran and its people, and would be used by them as an assessment criterion is the next US administration’s future performance and executive policies,” he added. 

He further said the policies of previous US administrations and their intervention in Middle Eastern countries are the “main factors behind the escalation of tensions” in the troubled region.

All these testify to the need for the US to seriously review its policies vis-à-vis other regions, he added.

‘Americans frustrated with political structure’

Meanwhile, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani, said the outcome of the US election indicates “increasing frustration and distrust among the majority of the American society with regard to the current structure and trends in the country.”

He, however, expressed hope that the election would paves the way for the US to revise its policies, which were based on disregard for the interests of the majority and reliance on countless resources, which it was using to pursue imperialism, interventionism, warfare, and bloodshed against other countries.

Shamkhani, meanwhile, asserted that no change of the ruling system in any foreign country would prompt Iran to change its “independent course and smart attitude.”

'Trump election brings no change to US policies'

Also on Wednesday, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the second-in-command in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said the election of Trump as the next US president would change nothing in Washington’s policies.

"To us, there is no meaningful difference as to which candidate wins, since no specific change will take place in the US’ regional, global or general policies with regard to its interactions with different parts of the world," the senior Iranian commander said.

He added that it had been proved in the past four decades that the US policies vis-à-vis Iran would not change with the election of a new president either from the Democrats or Republicans.

"The US policies towards Iran will not alter with the change of the US president because there is a political establishment there, which sets out its objectives based on an unfair relation with other countries and such foreign relations are independent of the party which comes to power," Salami said.

'American people opposed to belligerent policies'

The chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said the results of the presidential election in the United States showed that the American people do not favor warmongering and violent policies, which have claimed the lives of many US nationals and wasted part of the country’s wealth worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"It remains to be seen what policies will be pursued by Trump vis-à-vis the region and the Muslim world, but overall, the vote of the American people is a no to warmongering and violent policies," the senior Iranian lawmaker said.

"It seems that the American public opinion expects [the next government] to address the problems of the people."

Meanwhile, Boroujerdi pointed to the nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers and said the US president was obliged under international law to comply with the deal.

“Since Americans have been committed to the JCPOA – though they have frequently reneged on their promises – this commitment is related to the American government, not to [incumbent President Barack] Obama and [his Secretary of State] John Kerry. Naturally, the US president is obligated to fulfill this commitment within framework of international regulations and relations…. Therefore, any step [taken by the United States]… will be answered by a proportionately reciprocal action [by Iran].”

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