Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks as he presides over the last cabinet meeting in Tehran, the capital, on Jan. Tehran = AP Yonhap News
“If our administration has made a mistake, we apologize to the people. I ask for mercy and forgiveness.”
(President Hassan Rouhani of Iran)
President Hassan Rouhani, who was about to retire after his eight-year term expired, practically the last word he left to the people was as follows. Although he said, “I did my best during my tenure,” he apologized in a humble voice for the government’s situation. He also hurriedly acknowledged the fact that it had suffered a blow to the livelihoods of the people as it faced difficulties in negotiating the resumption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, Iran Nuclear Agreement) with the United States. With the inauguration of new president Ebrahim Raish, a conservative and hardliner toward the US on the 5th (local time), Iran is expected to undergo major changes, and this is a ‘reflection letter’ for the president to leave.
At the last cabinet meeting aired on Iranian state TV on the 1st, President Rouhani said that “sometimes he did not tell the people part of the truth.” “What we announced did not contradict reality, but we were afraid that the (undisclosed truth) would undermine the unity of the people.” The Associated Press interpreted Rouhani’s remarks as an acknowledgment of the fact that the government failed to respond properly even in the face of various crises such as the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) pandemic and the recent severe drought. It can also be interpreted as a reference to the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in the course of a retaliatory attack against the death of Qasem Soleimani, a former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran, in a US airstrike in January last year.
For the past eight years, President Rouhani has worked hard to normalize relations with the United States. However, it is evaluated that the successive US regime change in the order of ‘Barack Obama → Donald Trump → Joe Biden’ caught his ankle. In particular, former President Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA prevented the re-creation of government by the moderates who supported President Rouhani. President Rouhani also said about the JCPOA signed in 2015 under the Obama administration, “it gave Iran victory in both economic and political terms.” “The government has tried to bring the inflation rate down to single digits, but the country is facing an economic war,” he said. Admitting ‘failure’.
The problem is that the possibility of a future conflict between Iran and the West has increased. Concerns over the Laishi regime, which is about to take office, are felt everywhere. The Israeli daily Jerusalem Post (JP) reported that “President Laishi appeared with a ‘bang’.” It is claimed that Iran was responsible for the attack on an Israeli vessel off the coast of Oman on the 29th of last month. The media also added, “As President Laishi is imminent, it is already affecting negotiations on the restoration of the nuclear agreement. We cannot be reassured.”
Jinwook Kim reporter kimjinuk@hankookilbo.com
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