http://www.euronews.com/
A senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader has told euronews that
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency has effectively come to an end with
more than a year to go before the scheduled election.
After
parliamentary elections earlier this month, Mohammad-Javad Larijani said
the west should recognise that Iran has a new kind of democracy and
defended the country's controversial nuclear programme.
He
reacted to the recent meeting between the leaders of Israel and the
United States, where the possibility of military action against Iranian
nuclear installations was discussed.
Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the Secretary General of the Iran High Council For Human Rights speaks to euronews reporter Jon Davies.
Mohammad-Javad
Larijani: "Putting myself in the place of the American people, it will
be a bit disgraceful because to catch the heart of the American people
to get the office, it seems that people are first going to get the heart
of Netanyahu and AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee)
instead of the heart of the people.
"It was a distraction from
the mainstream issues that American politicians are confonting. Iran's
nuclear programme is so transparent, everybody knows the reality of
that. So my reaction is that it was a political set-up to distract the
attention of the people from focusing on economic issues which are very
hard to resolve. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any
viable programme to answer (the problems). But anyhow, this accursed
discussion of violence against a nation is unprecedented."
Jon
Davies, euronews: "You say the nuclear programme is transparent, but
even the Russians have said recently that Iran must keep its promise to
allow international inspectors access to the nuclear programme, which
didn't happen earlier in February when the mission from the IAEA came
back empty-handed having said that they were being refused and blocked
along the way. Where is the transparency?"
Mohammad-Javad
Larijani: "Monitoring is continuous over there. The cameras are there.
The people are going. And, well, 'empty-handed' is a bad word if they
used it, because it depends on how they defined their mission. Obviously
they should define their mission beforehand. They cannot wave their
hands and say: 'I want to go there and watch it'."
euonews: "But in a transparent system, that would happen wouldn't it?"
Mohammad-Javad
Larijani: "Even in a transparent system, it doesn't mean that they can
give a telephone call and say they want to go to that place. We agreed
to transparency fully-fledged. But the equation has two sides.
Transparency is expected from us, we expect co-operation from the other
side. We should have access to all non-military [aspects] of nuclear
activities. We should have the ability to enjoy the cooperation of other
states. We are deprived of all of that and they unilaterally ask Iran
to be transparent. It is so inconsistent.
euronews: "So it sounds
to me like you're saying there is not complete transparency, because
you're not getting the other side of the coin..."
Mohammad-Javad
Larijani: "No in fact, I want to say that transparency is on a spectrum.
It depends on what time, what thing is catching the eyes of the
monitors. For the nuclear reactor in Tehran, which we use to produce
drugs and medical treatments for cancer patients, obviously we should be
able to buy 20 per cent enriched [uranium].
Well, first they said
we should swap it. We said: 'Fine.' They said: 'No, you should give all
of your minimally enriched [uranium].' It doesn't make sense. We want to
use a nuclear reactor in Tehran which is totally for medical treatment.
So [we said]: 'OK, forget about it, we made it and we used it.'
"These
are bad habits of the United States. We do not accept the leadership of
the USA. This is an absolutely failed story. But they can treat us like
any other sovereign state, fantastic! We can talk, we can deal, we can
give and take. We can do a lot of things, but no orders. This leadership
may be accepted by Germany, by Sarkozy and others, but definitely not
by the Iranians.
"The basic issue is obvious. Iran is emerging as
an influential power in the region, with a different social-political
system. We have our own democracy, not based on a secular liberal system
but based on Islamic rationality. And this experience which has been
going for more than three decades is turning Iran from the stooges of
the United States to a leading country in the area with the most
advanced level of science and technology."
