TEHRAN, 27 June 2005 — President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran would press ahead with its nuclear program and that the country had no real need for ties with archfoe, the United States.
A day after his landslide election, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah sent messages of congratulations to Ahmadinejad and expressed their desire to strengthen Saudi-Iranian relations. “On the occasion of your victory in the general elections, I have the pleasure to congratulate you for the confidence the Iranian people reposed on you,” King Fahd said in his message and wished Ahmadinejad success in his new career.
In press statements yesterday, Ahmadinejad said he would maintain good relations with Arab states and reach out to all countries except Israel. “I will extend my hand to all... and I will strive to expand relations with everyone, with the exception of Israel,” he told Okaz newspaper.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said that Iran’s “policy of detente” with its neighbors would remain in place.
“The policy of detente is a policy of the regime. It is one of the macro policies of the regime... it will continue,” Asefi told reporters. “We are currently pursuing the policy of trust building, cooperation and participation with other nations. We will have more expansion of ties with regional countries. I don’t think with the new president there will be any changes in the macro policies of the regime,” he said.
But in a sign that his election would cement decades of enmity between Tehran and Washington, Ahmadinejad and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traded negative remarks in their first comments since the vote.
But the former mayor of Tehran said Iran would not abandon nuclear talks with the European Union although negotiations would be based on Iran’s “national interest”.
Europe shares US suspicions that Iran is seeking to build atomic weapons. Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, insists the program is to meet soaring demand for electricity.
“We need this technology for energy and medical purposes. We shall carry on with it,” Ahmadinejad said in his first news conference since beating moderate cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Asked about talks between the European Union and Iran over its nuclear program, he said: “With preserving national interests and by emphasizing the right of the Iranian nation for using peaceful nuclear technology, we will continue the talks.”
European states — Britain, France and Germany — will list incentives that could be part of a deal to end Iran’s uranium enrichment program in late July or early August.
Prior to Ahmadinejad’s news conference, EU Commission Vice President Franco Frattini told Italy’s La Repubblica daily that the EU would freeze dialogue with Iran if Iran’s comments on nuclear or human rights issues were “negative”.
The president of Iran has little power to change national policy in Iran’s system of clerical rule, with the final word in matters of state lying with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But analysts says the hard-liner will influence policy.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Asefi said nuclear policy was unlikely to change.
During campaigning, Ahmadinejad said Iran had an inalienable right to nuclear technology. Rival candidates advocated better ties with the United States, often dubbed the “Great Satan” in Iran, but Ahmadinejad said such ties were not a priority.
“Our nation is continuing on the path of progress and has no significant need for (relations with) the United States,” Ahmadinejad told the news conference yesterday.
Rumsfeld said Ahmadinejad was “no friend of democracy” and would prove himself unacceptable to Iran’s young people and its women.
The 48-year-old Ahmadinejad, who earlier visited the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic state, secured many votes from Iran’s devout poor as he railed against rich cliques and promised to share out oil wealth.
His opponents fear Ahmadinejad’s victory heralds a return to the purges and strictures of the early days after the 1979 revolution. As mayor, he has swept out old managers in municipal bodies and replaced them with young recruits.
Ahmadinejad, a former officer in the Revolutionary Guards and instructor in the Basij religious militia, has dismissed such worries as scaremongering by rivals and called for national unity.
“No extremism will be acceptable in popular government,” he told the news conference, adding that his government would be one of “peace and moderation”.
But he said he would fight corruption in Iran’s oil and other sectors of the economy.
Iran’s conservative press hailed Ahmadinejad as a man who could take on the United States and uphold the moral principles of the revolution. Reformists blamed themselves for failing to implement reforms under outgoing President Mohammad Khatami. The conservative Kayhan newspaper wrote Ahmadinejad’s win would scupper US attempts to flex its muscles in the Middle East under what it called a smokescreen of spreading democracy.
“The recent election and the people’s leaning toward a devout man... means America’s plot of democratization in the region has backfired,” wrote editor Hossein Shariatmadari.
