"ARMENIA MUST LEAVE THE OCCUPIED LANDS"

The presidential elections held in Iran on 14 June were at the centre of world attention. The Iranian president-elect Hassan Rou-hani belongs to the reformist circles and is expected to make changes in foreign and domestic policy. The well-known expert and professor of Tehran University, Bahram Amir Ahmadian, shared his opinions about Hassan Rouhani and also Iran's relations with the international community.

- A new president has been elected in Iran. How might Hassan Rouhani's election reflect on your country's future?

- As one of Iran's well-known statesmen, Hassan Rouhani has great political experience. He is a doctor of law, was educated abroad, headed the Strategic Research Centre under the supreme spiritual leader, and was for many years a member of Iranian diplomatic missions. So there can be no doubt that he will be able to handle all the plans he has been set. In his speech Rouhani noted that he would restore the system of planning the Iranian economy, ensure the rights of women and strengthen the national self-awareness of the Iranian people. First and foremost, he has promised to improve the economic situation and pave the way for strengthening the national currency. Hassan Rouhani also attaches great importance to friendly relations with the neighbouring countries and intends to broaden relations with the different world cultures in order to strengthen Iran's position in the international arena. He intends to promote ethnic values in the context of religious ideology and instil freedom and universal human principles.

- What can the Iranian people expect from his presidency?

- Of course, any president of Iran must base his work on the Constitution of the Islamic Republic and in the context of his own powers. The Iranian intelligentsia, young people, students and women voted for him at the elections. They expect from him the safeguarding of peace, stability, security and confidence. The Iranian people want friendship and cultural and economic cooperation with the peoples of the world, especially the neighbouring countries. They are in favour of peaceful relations with their neighbours and are opposed to interference in the internal affairs of any country.

- How active is Iran today in the political processes in the region and to what degree does the present situation meet the interests of your country?

- Iran wants the eradication of military and political conflicts in the region. Iran's aim is that the countries of the region themselves resolve their own problems. We do not want other states and non-regional countries to rule us and decide our problems for us. We have enough potential of our own to resolve problems. Let us take, for example, the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. This is a problem for the region in which Iran, Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan are situated. How does it happen that they set up the Minsk group of the OSCE involving the USA and France and they want to resolve the problem?! Why have we not been given a role in this question? Why shouldn't we cooperate in questions which we can resolve together?! In all international organizations and official documents Iran has stated its support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Iran says everywhere that Karabakh and the seven adjacent regions are Azerbaijani territories and they are occupied. Armenia must leave the occupied lands.

- Why, then, is Iran providing assistance to Armenia and supporting it in every way?

- You are Armenia's neighbours, your territory is occupied and you are in a state of war with them. Armenia and Iran are independent states which border on each other. In exactly the same way you maintain relations with the USA and Israel and this does not concern us. We do not condemn you for this, although we consider America to be our enemy. Israel has occupied the territories of Muslim states just as Armenia has occupied your lands. In general, Iran's attitude to Azerbaijan is very good.

- But official Baku has stated that it will not let Azerbaijani territory be used for a possible military strike against Iran…

- Azerbaijan's president, Mr Ilham Aliyev, has always and from all international rostrums stated that the Azerbaijani state will not allow its territories to be used for an attack on Iran. We are perfectly well aware of this. Today Iran is in a political and economic encirclement, but Azerbaijan supports us. And we support Azerbaijan. Our President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said earlier: "Azerbaijan's problems are Iran's problems and Azerbaijan's security is Iran's security."

- The international community does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. What does Iran in fact want to achieve?

- Iran is an independent state and is trying to protect its rights in the framework of international organizations. What does this right mean? The possession of nuclear technology is the right of any member of the international community and we want to take advantage of this right. But, as you can see, very few states in the world possess this technology which is linked with a monopoly in this sphere. So they oppose Iran but it could be said that they have achieved nothing in ten years. Show me an international document which says that Iran is preparing a nuclear bomb. There is no such document. Iran wishes to take a stand against this injustice and protect its rights. They want to accuse us of developing nuclear weapons as they once accused the Saddam Hussain regime of producing weapons of mass destruction, but they found no documentary proof and in the end they destroyed Iraq.

- How would you like to comment on the Iranian-Israeli confrontation? What could this lead to?

- How can a small country like Israel attack Iran? Where will it attack from? From the sky? Across which country? If the Israelis reach our borders Iran will destroy them with its own ballistic missiles. But Iran doesn't want a war. Iran regards its weapons from the point of view of self-defence. We have no claims on the territories of another state. We have only one aim: to conduct an independent foreign policy and to play our part in the world.

- What kind of research have you been carrying out on our region?

- I have been studying the Caucasus region for many years. Back in 1988 I wrote an article for an academic journal about Karabakh and Azerbaijan in general. At that time no-one in Iran knew where Karabakh was. You know, nobody in Iran wanted Azerbaijan to have problems. We can see that Azerbaijan is one of the world's leading countries in terms of growth of incomes. Smugglers are constantly crossing over to us from our eastern neighbour Afghanistan and drugs are finding their way through, which creates a threat to us.  But we also have a neighbour like Azerbaijan, where we can see political, economic and scientific development. This is very good. Any good country should be glad of the development of its neighbour. At least, it will not suffer from this.

- The Azerbaijanis living in Iran do not have a school in their own language. Is this not an infringement of the rights of the 30 million Iranian Azerbaijanis?

- In Iran there are four regions - East and West Azerbaijan, Zanjan and Ardabil. A part of the population of West Azarbaijan are Kurds. According to the official statistics there are 13 million people living here. In Iran there is no question of anyone not being given a job or being sacked just because they are Turks [ethnic Azeris]. It is their homeland. In the question of language you proceed on the basis that in your day you were forced to learn Russian, but the Russians did not teach, for example, Azeri, Kazakh, Uygur or Georgian. This was an occupying country. It came, occupied your lands, created its own government and did not allow ethnic languages to develop. Our situation is different.  Here the Persian language has been used for 1,100 years. Although the works of Ferdowsi were written a thousand years ago, we have no problem reading them. English people, for example, can't read Shakespeare who wrote four centuries ago. He has to be translated into modern English. The Iranian peoples have their own single language of communication. In our Azerbaijan mothers sing cradle songs in their own language and in all Turkic families they speak Azeri. In other words, our attitude to Persian cannot be compared with your attitude to Russian. The whole of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Baluchistan and Khorasan - we are all one big Iranian family, the Iranian people.