By Ron Baygents, NNN-KUNA
Washington : Speaking at the first live video-conference held at the National Press Club, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denied saying last summer that Iran was prepared “to fill the gap” as US influence wanes in Iraq.
Appearing on screen in Washington via video link from outside UN headquarters in New York City Monday, Ahmadinejad responded to the question of how Iran would fill such a gap by saying, ” … This too is one of those distortions by the press. I said our region will soon face a power vacuum, and Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and regional countries are able to fill in that vacuum.”
“I said that nations, countries in the region are able to establish security themselves, and they do not need the presence of others in the region in order to arrive at security,” Ahmadinejad responded.
“This is what I said very clearly and will say again.” Asked what role he sees Iran playing in the future of Iraq, Ahmadinejad said: “For hundreds of years we have lived in friendship and brotherhood with the people of Iraq. We want an independent powerful Iraq, a developed Iraq which will benefit the entire region.” Iranians are the ones harmed most by insecurity in Iraq, he said.
“We would like to see peace, tranquility and progress in Iraq because people in Iraq have historical ties with us,” he said. “Annually, millions of people from the two countries travel to the other country. There are a lot of intermarriages. There are many Iranians who are born in Iraq, and many Iraqis who are born in Iran.”
Iran wants nothing but goodness and progress for the Iraqi nation, he said, “but we think that regional countries themselves can know how to run the affairs of the region best. They do not need a guardian from outside to tell them how to do it.”
Asked about Pentagon allegations that Iran is smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops, Ahmadinejad said: “We will allow the US military there to basically take what it confiscates, whatever these missiles or whatever these weapons it claims it has or sees in Iraq. We think, in fact, the (US) military should seek an answer to defeat in Iraq elsewhere in the misguided policies that it has led and the wrong perspective that it has had toward Iraq and its people. Regretfully, they are standing against the Iraqi people.”
Asked again if he would confirm that Iranian weapons were going into Iraq, Ahmadinejad said: “No, this does not exist. Are you telling me that the US military is defeated as a result of two or three weapons here and there? There are two problems here looking at it like this. First of all, it undermines the power of the US military by making statements like this. And second of all, US politicians will not be able to make the right decision on matters about Iraq. The problem of the US military lies elsewhere. They need to change their methods.”
Asked why Iran would not agree to a civilian nuclear partnership with other countries, instead of enriching its own uranium when doing so raises suspicions that it intends to develop nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad said: “First of all, that is not right. We are a member of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and the powers of the IAEA explicitly grant us that right.”
Two years ago, he said, he made the same proposal in the United Nations, “but those selfish groups that did not want to listen to it did not embrace it. And secondly why should a nation tie its future to another group, another nation? Is the US government willing to engage in partnership with us and advance its nuclear activities in partnership with us? If they are willing to do that, we are willing to do it, too.”
The president asked why the US government, which is a member of the IAEA, should have more rights over Iran, which is also a member of the IAEA. “If there is law, international law, it is equal for everyone,” he said.
“Why is it that some people want more rights for themselves?” Responding to recent remarks by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that the world should prepare for war with Iran if negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme fail, Ahmadinejad said Kouchner took his remark back and revised it, “and secondly the United States and France are not the world, do not speak for the world.”
Iran is working under the inspection of the IAEA system, “and our activities are legal and for peaceful purposes,” he said.
Ahmadinejad suggested that Kouchner be given time “to gain more experience in his new position, too, and then I am sure he will talk from a level with more higher maturity.” Asked if Iran and Israel will ever co-exist in peace, Ahmadinejad said: “We do not recognise that regime because it is based on discrimination; ethnic discrimination, occupation, usurpation. And it consistently threatens its neighbours. Last week or so, it attacked Syria, and last year it attacked Lebanon.”
“They kill people, they displace people, they kill young people in their own homes,” he said of the Israelis. “How is it possible to recognise this? I am surprised why members of the press do not raise voices of objection to the policies there.”
Asked about the Holocaust, and whether he would meet with Holocaust survivors, Ahmadinejad said: “Where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe. And given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced? Why is it affecting them? Why are they paying the damage by giving up their land? Why?”
Asked whether the 1979 capture of more than 50 US hostages in Iran was morally justified or wrong, Ahmadinejad said: “I propose we do not return to the past, because then we would have to talk about records of 25 years of measures taken by the US administration inside Iran and that history as well, from the coup in 1953 to its support of a dictatorship (the Shah of Iran) and the humiliation of the Iranian people and efforts to divide Iran and to insult Iranian people, robbing Iran of its resources and defending (former Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) during an eight-year war against Iran.”
In answer to whether he planned to run for re-election in two years, Ahmadinejad smiled and said, “What do you think?”