According to Khabar Online political correspondent, Rafsanjani was speaking at a session attended by Iranian journalists and cultural activists on Thursday and responded to their questions.
Among the questions raised by the attendants was the method of Iran's possible tie with the United States. The former president stated that the principle of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy is based on building relations with all countries throughout the world except the usurper Zionists regime of Israel.
Recently in a letter sent indirectly to the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei concerning the issue of the crucial oil shipping waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, the US President Barack Obama called for negotiations between the two countries.
Commenting on the issue, Hashemi Rafsanjani believes: "Iranians do not have a good memory of the presence of the United States in Iran."
Referring to breaking the relations between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Chairman of the Expediency Council went on to say: "It is due to colonial interference of the United States particularly direct backing of Pahlavi regime of Iran, but the US can make effort to ease tension with Iran based on equality in relations between the two countries."
Hashemi Rafsanjani asserted that interaction with all countries except the Zionist regime of Israel is one of the general policies ratified by the Expediency Council: "From the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, we were not to severe ties with the world."
"As a matter of fact, development in the internal issues of country and progress in economy and establishing the infrastructures will be better possible when the world understands the rightful stances of the Islamic Republic," he added.
The United States and Iran severed their diplomatic ties in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which led to the collapse of the pro-West Iranian monarchy regime led by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and later the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.
In late December, the United States opened a virtual online embassy to reach out to Iranians despite the absence of official ties. The virtual embassy will purportedly allow Iranians to start applications for visas to the United States.
But Iranians will still need to go overseas, typically to Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, to obtain visas. Numerous Iranian nationals are currently settled in the US.
The latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors which claims Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon has exacerbated the earlier soar relation between Iran and the US, and gave the latter and the EU a pretext to impose new economic sanctions on Tehran including on trade with Iran's Central Bank (CBI).
Further measures have also been taken to put embargo on Iran’s oil products. In the meantime, the Islamic Republic has categorically rejected such allegations stressing that its nuclear program is aimed at civilian purposes.
281