Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated on Wednesday morning the ceremony in celebration of the 9th National Day of Space Technology by unveiling 'Nahid I' Communications Satellite, AUT ‘Payam’ remote sensing satellite and ‘Saman I’ orbital transfer system.
“Complete reliance on exports or putting aside the world’s vast reservoir of experience are both wrong. We need to put our domestic capacities and scientists together with global knowledge and technology,” President Rouhani said.
He went on to add, “at the moment, we are in the process of building a big nuclear power plant in the country. Before, we had to purchase it from Russia, but today we have made a deal with them under which Iran will build 20 per cent of the plant and Russia the rest 80 per cent of it. For the next power plant, we will take over 40 per cent of the construction project.”
“Today’s world is the world for cooperation,” he stressed.
“Space science is of utmost importance to us,” the President said. “We need technology because it gives us power. The more capable we become in science and technology, the less the enemy will feel inclined to regard our country with greedy eyes.”
“Our revolution contains a message for the next generations and the world, and we need communication systems to deliver people’s messages more easily, more cost-efficiently and more quickly,” he said, adding “the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology must become the platform to convey the religious, cultural, scientific and political messages of the Iranian nation to the world and build a communication bridge between the Iranian society and the international community.”
Elsewhere, President Rouhani referred implicitly to the recent move by the US government that bars nationals of seven countries including Iran from entering the US, adding “if a president of a country assumes that by banning visas for people of a number of countries he can actually create distance among human beings, he is completely wrong.”
“Of course, one cannot expect too much from someone who is new to the world of politics and it will take him and his people a long time to understand political mechanisms, while in the meantime, they will deal great damage to the people of their own country as well as other nations,” he said.
“American officials claimed for years that they were only opposed to the Iranian government but actually loved the people,” Rouhani said. “But today, their hypocrisy has been finally exposed. People who claim to be defenders of anti-discrimination, are now taking wrong measures based on discrimination and violation of rights.”
Rouhani further stressed that the world today is the world of communication and linking ideas, adding “the period of building up walls to create division among nations has long passed.”
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