Gerard Larcher is visiting Tehran and was received by Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Saturday. They also participated in a joint press conference where French official hailed President Rouhani’s January visit to France; “the visit by President Rouhani could pioneer an era of strong relations between France and Iran; Mr. Hollande is very pleased to have Mr. Rouhani late January in Paris,” he told reporters.
On Iran’s nuclear program and UN resolutions and the IAEA Board of Governors’ recent session to finalize solution to Iran’s nuclear issues, Larcher said that he was hopeful that the implementation of JCPOA would bring an end to sanctions on Iran’s economy; “this is the first ever visit by a French Senate president to Iran. I thank Mr. Larijani for the invitation to visit Tehran,” he briefly said.
Turning on Syrian crisis, Larcher assessed the UN resolution demanding that aid to ISIL be cut as positive; “in meeting with Mr. Larijani, we discussed the resolution as well. We also addressed Lebanon’s future in terms of official government bodies; Yemen crisis was also a matter of discussion; we emphasized on joint objective of fighting terrorism and the critical role of strong will and military support to this international campaign,” he told reporters.
On Syrian Crisis, he believed that the UN resolution proved that the international community had succeeded to find a solution in terms of taking steps forward in terms of political perspective; no time in the history had peace been achieved through soldiers and military means, rather, it would be best embraced by politicians’ good offices,” he emphasized.
On the role of French Senate on fighting terrorism, Larcher said that the Senate had given enough green lights for any action to the government; after 4 months, French took part in a military effort. 3 weeks ago, Senate voted for air strikes against terrorist strongholds in Syria, and our two foreign affairs and intelligence commissions had been jointly working hard on this,” he told reporters.
“We talked to Vladimir Putin of Russia about Syria; two weeks ago, I met Algerian president; we discussed in length (15 days) with Nigerian Parliament speaker about Boko Haram; these all demonstrate clearly the weight of regional crises for France and we see these meetings as part of campaign against terrorism,” he concluded.
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