by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Hassan Rouhani
Tehran : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that Iran could restore its relations with Saudi Arabia should the kingdom end its “friendship” with Israel.
Tehran would “have no problem” with Riyadh if it stops “bowing to Israel” and relies on itself, Rouhani said at a parliamental meeting, Xinhua reported.
“We want Saudi Arabia to stop two things, the misguided friendship with Israel and the inhuman bombardment of Yemen,” he stressed.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in early 2016 in protest against the attacks against Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran following the Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric.
The firing of a ballistic missile at Riyadh by the Houthis last month led to renewed tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Rouhani’s remarks came amid media reports that Riyadh has been seeking closer ties with Israel in a bid to counter the rising influence of Iran, a common enemy to Saudi and Israel.
On November 25, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman compared Iran’s growing regional influence to Germany’s hegemonic policies in the Hitler era.
“We learned from Europe that appeasement would not work. We do not want the ‘new Hitler’ of Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East,” he said.
A Saudi-led military coalition has been fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015 to support President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was ousted by the Houthis in September 2014.
The Houthis have seized control of much of Yemen’s northern areas, including the capital Sanaa since 2014.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Tehran/New Delhi : In a significant sign of successful trilateral cooperation, Iran President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday inaugurated the first phase of the Shahid Beheshti Port in the country’ southeastern city of Chabahar as India, Iran and Afghanistan discussed further transit options.
The port opens a new strategic transit route between Iran, India, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations bypassing Pakistan.
The project in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by 60 foreign guests from 17 countries, including Indian Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan, at the port located by the Sea of Oman.
Located 645 km to the south of Zahedan, the provincial capital city, the only oceanic port of Iran will now link its Sistan and Baluchestan provinces to Central Asia and Afghanistan.
“We are happy that the first wheat shipment for Afghanistan has been sent to the country’s people via the Iranian port,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA news agency.
According to an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement issued in New Delhi, Radhakrishnan represented India in the second meeting of the India-Iran-Afghanistan ministerial-level trilateral meeting on Chabahar port development on Sunday.
“In the trilateral meeting with Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi and Afghan Trade and Commerce Minister Humayoon Rasaw, the three sides reviewed and positively assessed the progress in the development of Chabahar port and reiterated their commitment to complete and operationalise the port at the earliest that would contribute to bilateral and regional trade and economic development and also provide alternate access to landlocked Afghanistan to regional and global markets,” it said.
According to a joint statement issued following the meeting, the three Ministers decided to finalize protocols related to transport and transit, ports, customs procedures and consular affairs.
“Reiterating the importance of Chabahar as a hub for regional economic connectivity and their commitment to work towards this objective, the Ministers commended the joint efforts of the three countries in the recent successful transit of wheat from India to Afghanistan through Chabahar,” it said.
“It was also reiterated to organize a connectivity event involving all stakeholders at Chabahar at the earliest so as to increase awareness about the new opportunities offered by Chabahar Port,” it said.
The three Ministers agreed that an integrated development of connectivity infrastructure including ports, road and rail networks would open up greater opportunities for regional market access and contribute towards the economic integration and benefit of the three countries and the region, according to the joint statement.
The port’s inauguration comes more than a month after the first consignment of wheat from India to Afghanistan was sent via Chabahar – the first shipment after the trilateral agreement to develop the port as a transport and transit corridor between India, Iran and Afghanistan was signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Iranian and Afghan Presidents Rouhani and Ashraf Ghani, respectively, in May last year.
Shahid Beheshti Port will be regarded as a new development stage for the province, President Rouhani said in Sunday’s event. The capacity of the port is 8.5 million tonnes.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the port would reinforce Iranian-Indiam mutual and regional cooperation. “It also shows the importance of the port in the development of the region and the routes that connect Central Asian states to other countries in the world through the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean.”
The port will increase the capacity of loading and unloading of the ships as well as the employment rate in the province, according to an official with the Sistan and Baluchestan Ports and Maritime Organisation.
Ahead of the inauguration, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on a surprise stopover on her way back from a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Russia met her Iranian counterpart Zarif in Tehran on Saturday and discussed the port project among other issues.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Hassan Rouhani
Tehran : Iran has not stopped building missiles and has no intention of doing so, said President Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani’s remarks came on Sunday, three days after the US House of Representatives approved legislation that would impose new sanctions on Tehran for pursuing long-range ballistic missiles, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In a speech carried on nationwide television, Rouhani insisted that no international agreements prohibit the development of such non-nuclear weapons, and that Iran has a right to produce them for its own defence.
“We will build, produce and store any weapon of any kind we need to defend ourselves, our territorial integrity and our nation, and we will not hesitate about it,” he said, according to a translation provided by the Iranian Students News Agency.
Several times in the speech, Rouhani took aim at the US for what he called its “shaky” commitment to the nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration.
US President Donald Trump has consistently attacked the deal, and recently refused to certify that Iran is living up to its end, although he did not pull out of the agreement as he has threatened to do.
“The administration of a country that abandons international commitments of the previous administration is not reliable,” the Iranian leader said.
In negotiating and signing the nuclear deal with the US, Rouhani frequently clashed with more conservative forces in Iran who opposed any cessation of the country’s nuclear weapons program. But there is near unanimity across the political spectrum in Iran on maintaining a robust missile program.
“The missile project is a red line for everybody,” said Saeed Laylaz, an economist and journalist who is considered a political moderate and reformer. “Nobody allows any country to put limits on its defensive military programme.”
Hamid Reza Taraghi, an influential conservative politician who is close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, agreed.
“All neighbouring countries in the region have missiles,” he said in an interview. “Israel has nuclear weapons, Pakistan and India have nuclear warheads, then we cannot have missiles? Give me a break.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Hassan Rouhani
Tehran : Iran is entitled to gain benefits from the 2015 nuclear deal and no one can roll back the positive results of the accord, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said here on Saturday.
“In the nuclear negotiations and the deal, we gained advantages that are irreversible. No one can reverse them, neither Mr. Trump nor anyone else,” Xinhua cited Press TV that quoted Rouhani as saying.
“In negotiation, we showed that we are not just strong at war, but we are also strong at making peace,” he said, adding that Iran established its right to peaceful nuclear energy during the talks and “this victory is not reversible.”
The Iranian president said that the US was claiming it has been shortchanged in the deal, “which is of course wrong, because the deal has been based on a win-win framework.”
The nuclear deal, known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and six world powers of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US in July 2015, now faces the risk of collapse amid a fallout between Washington and Tehran.
Trump called the Iran nuclear deal, reached during former US President Barack Obama’s administration, “an embarrassment” for the country.
Rouhani has said that his country will not be the first to violate the agreement, but will respond “decisively and resolutely” to any violation by any party.
“It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” Rouhani told the UN General Assembly, in response to Trump’s attack.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Hassan Rouhani
Tehran : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday urged Saudi Arabia to give up what he called the kingdom’s “interference” in Yemen’s internal affairs.
“Saudi Arabia should leave the Yemen’s affairs to its people,” Rouhani said in a live broadcast from the state IRIB TV.
If the Saudi officials stop their intervention in Yemen and give up their support to terrorism in the region, the relations between Iran and the Arab state will return to its normal track, Rouhani said.
He stressed that dialogue would be the best way for settling disputes between Tehran and Riyadh.
Iran’s dispatch of the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for annual Hajj ceremony in Mecca is an indication of Iran’s will for resolving the issues, he pointed out.
The Yemeni war pits Iranian-allied Shiite Houthi rebels, backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
The capital Sanaa and most of the northern provinces have been under control of Houthi rebels since September 2014.
The war has so far killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, half of them civilians, and displaced over two million others, according to UN humanitarian agencies.
—IANS
