“The president-elect is respected by the entire [Iranian] nation and everyone will help him in running the affairs of the country so that the country progresses,” said President Ahmadinejad in a Tuesday interview with Russia Today.
Rohani won Iran’s 11th presidential election, garnering 18,613,329 votes, or 50.7 percent of a total of 36,704,156 ballots.
Responding to a question about Iran’s economic problems, the Iranian president noted that all countries across the world are experiencing economic downturns to the recent global economic crisis.
He added, though, that Iran has made significant progress in various areas, including the economy and the industry sector, despite being subjected to unilateral sanctions by Western powers.
He said Western governments have maintained an anti-Iran approach since the triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and never sought interaction and cooperation with Tehran.
“After 34 years, they (Western governments) still follow the same [hostile] policy… Before the [Islamic] Revolution, they used to dominate our mine and oil [industries], but today their continued dominance is no longer possible and this is why they are angry at us, though today we have some of the strongest relations with the rest of the world,” he said.
In response to a question on the recent leak of classified US documents about Washington’s electronic surveillance on a global scale, President Ahmadinejad said Iranian networks, including those of the banking system, had been targeted by US cyber attacks prior to the recent leak of the info.
“Surely, this is a cyber war; and just as [cyber]attacks targeted Iranian banking, economic, water and power networks in the past and the country’s experts countered them, the same thing will happen in the future,” the Iranian president said.
Elsewhere in the interview and in response to a question about the possibility of direct Iran-US talks, President Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran is not opposed to the idea of negotiation in general, but stressed that there are certain conditions for dialog that should be provided in order for it to take place.
“Dialog is the best way to settle differences, but this task necessitates [certain] conditions; and it is not acceptable for one side to seek to enter negotiations by force and drag the other side to the negotiating table,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Dialog is in fact meant to bring about mutual understanding and strengthen friendships and is not a tool for [the] imposition [of one’s will]; it must take place under fair conditions.”
The Iranian president arrived in Moscow on Monday to participate in the 2nd summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and hold talks with foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He also met and spoke with Iranian expatriates in Moscow and a group of Russian scholars.
The GECF, the first ministerial meeting of which was held in Tehran in May 2001, is an intergovernmental organization, comprising 13 of the world's leading natural gas producers, namely Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands and Norway are observer states.
