What's on Rouhani's New York agenda?
Under pressure over the underwhelming economic windfall in the wake of the nuclear deal, President Hassan Rouhani is expected to focus on ensuring that sanctions relief is better implemented during a trip to New York.
NEW YORK — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is slated to address the UN General Assembly session that opens Sept. 20. It will be Rouhani's fourth such address, but this year he will notably only stay in New York for less than 48 hours.
Rouhani’s whirlwind visit to the United States comes at a time when he finds himself under increasing fire at home by hard-liners, who charge that the most important achievement of his foreign policy, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is “useless” and a “stain of disgrace” on Iranian history. Indeed, since the signing of the nuclear agreement in July 2015, Iranian hard-liners have relentlessly sought to devalue Rouhani’s success in ending the nuclear crisis while portraying it as another Treaty of Turkmenchay.
