NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday cautioned the United States about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying preventing Iran from exporting oil would be "very dangerous”.
"Imposing sanctions on Iran to prevent us from selling our oil will be very dangerous ... If (U.S. President Donald) Trump wants to talk to Iran, then he first should return to the (2015) nuclear deal first,” the ISNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying in a meeting with senior editors of foreign media in New York.
Rouhani is in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly.
In May, Trump pulled out of the international nuclear deal with Iran and announced sanctions against the OPEC member. Washington is pushing allies to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero and will impose a new round of sanctions on Iranian oil sales in November.
Under the accord, most international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in 2016 in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program.
Upon arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Rouhani said this year’s trip for the General Assembly was slightly different from the ones that took place in previous years.
"The climate is a little different from those of the previous years. The Americans have gone back on many of their agreements all across the world, including the agreement and pledge they had in the JCPOA,” he said.
"This year, there is an opportunity for some of the contraventions and instances of going back on international agreements to be defined better,” Rouhani said.
"In fact, our goal is to define the policies of the Islamic Republic concerning the world and the region at the meetings that we are going to have here God willing,” the president said.
Just before boarding the plane for the trip, Rouhani said that the U.S. wanted to cause insecurity in Iran with the help of "small mercenary states" in the region, but that the Islamic Republic is ready to confront them all.
"Americans want Iran to have no security. They want to create chaos and turmoil and set the conditions so that they can return to the country one day and rule as masters as they did in the old days, but none of these is possible," the president said. "These are unattainable dreams and America will never achieve any of these goals," Rouhani added.