Hassan Rouhani who is in southern littoral Hormozgan province during the second round of Cabinet cross-country trips received a group of local clerics and seminary schools lecturers on Tuesday evening.
“The enemy seeks to deprive the Iranians of their undisputable rights through different pretexts,” said Rouhani, “it had been also waging attempts cruelly to deprive us from our rights, but the government is working to rule out such pretexts.”
He pointed to his own responsibility on the nuclear issue. “I have had responsibilities in the nuclear program. The enrichment for the first time was an issue in 1988, and from the outset, we had not been seeking atomic weapons; since if we intended to acquire one, we would not negotiate with others on enrichment and technology,” Rouhani asserted.
Rouhani told the meeting that Iran had talked to the west as well as west to acquire technology. “If we did seek nuclear weapon, we would not announce it loudly through megaphone, advertizing our intentions to the international system. We do not want nuclear weapons, since Islam is against nuclear weapons,” he believed.
“We want to rely on ourselves. But the enemy sought pretexts and put cruel sanctions on us,” Rouhani complained. “The government has attempted to engage in negotiations with higher transparency in international legal framework with those countries that raised issues for Iran every now and then,” Rouhani added, “to stress upon our rights in negotiations with Powers.”
“We expect the world not to hurdle our way to peaceful nuclear technology, and we have taken steps,” Rouhani said. “Enrichment in Fordow and Natanz has been emphasized on in Geneva deal, and the only issue is the scope of increasing the purity,” he said.
Rouhani held that Iran would cling to its undisputable right and the government would work to eliminate cruel and unfounded sanctions through negotiations.
He believed that the second step would be the final step. “We hope that in the remaining six months, we hammer out agreements to lift the pressures on Iran,” he said.
SH/ZK
MNA
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