DAVOS/TEHRAN, 22 January 2004 — Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said yesterday that Tehran had never sought to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

“Iran has never been after weapons of mass destruction,” Khatami told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

“We vehemently oppose the manufacture and production of nuclear weapons. For this reason we extend sincere and honest cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency),” he said.

In response to a question, Khatami said: “I categorically deny that there was shipment of nuclear material by (North) Korea to Iran. We have nothing to hide.”

Khatami expressed confidence that his showdown with conservatives over next month’s parliamentary elections was heading toward a settlement.

Khatami refused to say whether he would follow other officials and submit his resignation in protest over the disqualification of reformist candidates. But he played down the row as sheer electoral politics.

“My colleagues and I have chosen one goal, to make sure that there is a free and competitive election,” Khatami said. “And the course of the events is going, hopefully through the grace of God, toward such a free and competitive election.”

Khatami appealed to the elite of the world’s political and business community to work for economic justice as a solution to the problems facing the globe, saying the process required “true dialogue”.

Khatami said the world’s large powers should turn the issue of economic relations into a humanitarian one.

“If the big powers accept dialogue, the lives of the poor can be improved,” he told the WEF gathering in a speech at times philosophical and at times showing political pragmatism.

Khatami said that there is widespread agreement that wealth is desirable, but it remained a problem of defining the term.

“A drop of water and a piece of bread are considered in many parts of the world as wealth,” the Iranian leader said.

In a speech held in the national language Farsi and televised live on Iranian TV, Khatami also argued that partnership, security and dialogue were linked together in trying to achieve prosperity.

“True partnership calls for genuine dialogue,” Khatami said, and that dialogue among civilizations as an effective means to remove global problems and differences between races, religions and cultures.

In what was seen as a swipe at the United States in Iraq, the Tehran leader said: “Democracy cannot be established in the absence of democratic norms...and democratic norms are not a package of goods ready for export.”

At the press conference, Khatami played down questions about the divisions in Iran ahead of the February elections in which the conservative Guardian Council has banned many liberal politicians from being able to stand for election.

“Democracy is a process we have to go through,” he said. He called the differences between the liberals and the Guardian Council “part of the election process”.

“My colleagues and I have chosen one goal: to make sure there is a free and competitive election,” Khatami told the press.

The Iranian leader became the first prominent figure to make a “special address” to the WEF gathering, his speech noteworthy in that it was given special prominence in being held right after the official opening ceremonies.

US Vice President Dick Cheney is due to give a special address to the WEF on Saturday. Khatami, asked whether he would be meeting with Cheney, indicated no meeting would take place.

“The first prerequisite is mutual respect. Whenever we feel the other side respects us, we are prepared,” he said. “We have not sensed this from the United States.”

Earlier yesterday Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told reporters Khatami and his reformist government were ready to quit over the hard-line Guardian Council’s decision to bar nearly half of 8,200 hopefuls from the Feb. 20 vote.

Abtahi later clarified that his remarks repeated a threat by senior government officials last week and previous comments by Khatami that reformists should either stick together or leave together.

Tired of resignation threats and failed efforts at reform in the face of resistance from conservative clerics, many Iranians have lost faith in Khatami, elected in a 1997 presidential vote.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was watching developments in Iran and hoped there would be fair elections.

“I hope they will be able to find a way to resolve their differences so that one can have free and fair elections with participation of all the parties,” he said after meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in southern Germany.