Iran News Round Up

President Hassan Rouhani discussed the election, U.S.-Iran relations, and other issues during a press conference on May 22.

• On the election: “With this election, people wanted to say that no faction, group, idea, and school of thought” can “be eliminated… everybody is present and we must make of use of everyone to build Iran.” He continued, “No one has the right to drag [the Islamic] Revolution in its own tent… The people have said, “we will maintain respect for our institutions, and will not allow a small group to control an entity that belongs to all people. The Supreme Leader belongs to the entire Iranian nation, not a particular group. The people said “no” to the reduction of the Supreme Leader, the IRGC, the Basij, and the armed forces.”
• On Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia: "The assembly in Saudi Arabia, I believe, was a sham assembly without any political and practical vision.”
• On the possibility of U.S.-Iran talks: “We are waiting for the new US administration to reach an established position with regard to its way of thinking and stances, as well as future plans and we hope that it can reach an established position to let us have a more precise judgement about the group at work in Washington.”
• "The other point is that unfortunately, Americans have always made mistakes with regard to our region, when they [attacked] Afghanistan and Iraq, when they imposed sanctions on us, and in Syria and Yemen… I hope that the US administration [thinks] about the interests of the American people, regardless of the fact that they are not thinking about the interests of other nations… Our policy is interaction with the world and for development, peace and stability in the world, we have no way other than interaction with other countries…. We had no problem with [the U.S.] but they started animosity with our nation and revolution. If [the U.S.] did not hold hostility, we would have no problem with them.”
• On the U.S. reaction to Iran’s elections: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Iran to stop supporting terrorist groups and to end its ballistic missile testing in his response to Rouhani’s re-election. Rouhani stated, "These are dreams… Our weapons and missiles are for peace and if Iran does not have weapons, if we do not build missiles, there are some who will make mistakes again in their calculations like they did before when they [dragged] the region into wars… The American authorities must know that whenever we need to test-fire missiles for technical reasons, we will test them and will not await permission from them.”
• On terrorism: "I don't think the people of the United States would be willing to trade the blood they gave in 9/11 with billions of dollars [in arms sales], surrendering to [terrorists] in the region. The US administration has never [combated] terrorism but the people of that country are against terrorists and want it eliminated.”
• “We will eradicate terrorism by the power and strength of God; over the next four years, we will restore stability to the region… We wanted to tell the world that we are willing to cooperate and interact, by means of mutual respect and through common interests. We want to tell the world that regional development is not possible without unity and harmony.” (President.ir) (E) (Fars News Agency)

 Fatimiyoun fighter Sultani Ahmadi and Zeinabiyoun fighters Aghid Hossein, Jawed Hossein, Safar Ali, Aftab Hossein, and Zulfeqar Ali will be buried in Qom on May 24. The dates of their deaths are unclear. (Rooykard 24)

 Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghassemi strongly condemned President Donald Trump’s allegations against Iran as “interfering, repetitious and baseless.” Ghassemi said President Trump is “fomenting Iranophobia as a tactic to sell more arms to the regional states.” Ghassemi also called on the Trump administration to recognize the “real sponsors of terrorism” and stop selling arms to them. Ghassemi added that President Trump’s rhetoric will not force Iran to change its policies. (Tasnim News Agency) (E) (Fars News Agency) (E)