Live Blog: Iran Votes For President

Asharq Al-Awsat: Given that the supreme leader is at the top of Iran’s political hierarchy, if elected, how would you ensure that your foreign policy initiatives have his support?

Hassan Rouhani: Decisions on major foreign policy issues constitutionally require the support of the supreme leader. I am privileged to have a long experience of working closely with the supreme leader, having served as Iran’s national security advisor during the Khatami and Rafsanjani administrations. Even during the last eight years, I remained one of his two representatives in the Supreme National Security Council. If elected, I expect to receive the same support and trust from the supreme leader on initiatives and measures I adopt to advance our foreign policy agenda.

Q: What about Iran’s nuclear program? Do you support talks between Iran and the P5+1, the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany?

Iran has an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, which under international law is lawful and indisputable. A politically motivated campaign of misinformation has persistently attempted to cast doubts on the exclusively peaceful nature of this program. This campaign is being fueled and directed first and foremost by Israel, in order to divert international attention not only from its own clandestine and dangerous nuclear weapons program, but also from its destabilizing and inhuman policies and practices in Palestine and the Middle East. Regrettably, the Security Council has discredited itself by allowing the United States to impose this counter-productive Israeli agenda.

If elected, I will reverse this trend by restoring international confidence and exposing the ulterior motives [of Iran’s critics]. Nuclear weapons have no role in Iran’s national security doctrine, and therefore Iran has nothing to conceal. But in order to move towards the resolution of Iran’s nuclear dossier, we need to build both domestic consensus and global convergence and understanding through dialogue.

Iran should articulate its positions and policies in a more coherent and appreciable manner, and the United States and its allies should abandon their deception of manufacturing new enemies and portraying Iran and its exclusively peaceful nuclear program as a threat. Serious, balanced and time-bound negotiations aimed at resolving clearly defined questions and concerns by both sides can play an effective role in resolving this artificially manufactured crisis. The P5+1 can be one channel for such negotiations, provided that they are prepared to be a vehicle for understanding and resolution of the issue rather than a tool for procrastination and political blackmail.