Hassan Rouhani received a group of media activists on Tuesday evening in Iran’s National Conference Hall where he indirectly addressed the 5+1 with a reaction 'stronger than what they would imagine' should a breach of agreement be perpetrated by the group; “the deadline of the end of June would not suffice for a nuclear agreement and few days would be added to the deadline, effectively extending the talks well to early July; most issues with the west have been resolved and only minor ones are to be addressed,” Mr. Rouhani told the meeting. “If the western negotiators abandon greed, attaching to the roadmap drawn by Geneva and Lausanne frameworks, a deal is accessible; however, reaching a nuclear deal would not mean a return to arrangements of the previous government in terms of economic and squandering oil income,” he argued.
“The incumbent government has since the outset been waging attempts to abort negative propaganda against the country and nation fuelled by allegations of obtaining weapons of mass destruction and belligerency toward the international community; we are against threatening any country; we do not seek weapons of mass destruction either,” Rouhani told the meeting.
“During nuclear negotiations, we have been working to tell the world that we are ready for making transparent our nuclear program to made it clear that Iran does not seek WMD by clandestine means; this is a misguided allegation made against us,” he said. “We sought more serious path in the negotiations during the past 22 months; I believe negotiations would turn out to be a win-win situation for both sides, since they will find it quite easy to ensure themselves that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, albeit Iran has been clearly declaring that from the beginning,” Rouhani emphasized.
Rouhani rejected claims made by the 5+1 on postponing Iran’s access to nuclear weapons as baseless and inaccurately conceived; “any successful talks would not mean restoration of arrangements of the recent past; we will not walk in a path to squander $720bn of oil income through unregulated imports, and to leave unsolved pressing problems as unemployment, water shortage and environmental issues,” he made clear references to the past government.
However, Mr. Rouhani admitted that all economic problems would not be solved overnight; “I would not say that that sum of money could have solved problems, or only this government is capable of solving all problems either; rather, I believe the past 8 years could have been time for giant leaps forward,” he said.
Rouhani then turned the most relevant issue of the media society; “the government does not seek to take the full control of the media, since it is neither legal nor professional; the press and the media should act freely to express and reflect the public demands and preoccupations; the only criteria should be adherence to the laws and the moral and professional code of conduct,” he told the meeting. “The media should work to clarify the realities; they should work to make the public informed, but they should avoid plunging the same public into the waves of misinformation in line with satisfying the vested interests of specific circles,” Rouhani concluded.