Nuclear programme, regional issues: exchange of views with Javad Zarif, Iranian Foreign Minister

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• published: 28 Feb 2016
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EN - European Parliament - Exchange of views with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran: introductory remarks on the analysis of the Iranian nuclear programme issue and of the Iran Deal, and on the application to regional issues, starting with the Persian Gulf issue - EP Committee on Foreign Affairs - 16.02.2016 - European Parliament, Brussels. EXTRACTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT - Mohammad Javad Zarif: "I think both the European Union and Iran can take pride in the fact that we were able to make diplomacy work. (...) We were able to make diplomacy work because we were able to change the paradigm through which we approached this issue. (...) What is important is to look at WHY we were able to reach a conclusion, and why we were able to implement that conclusion in spite of all the nay-sayers. (...) The reasons we were able to do that is that we redefined the problem in a way that enabled us to resolve it. (...) The United States had a stated policy that Iran should NOT have any nuclear programme. They called it a nuclear weapon programme, we always believed that our programme was a peaceful programme, but the United States insisted. (...) So the way the problem had been defined by the United States in the beginning was that Iran should not have a nuclear programme, period! And that made it almost impossible for Iran to accommodate that objective, because accommodating that objective would have been tantamount to Iran abandoning its right. In 2013, when we resumed negotiations, we were able to redefine our objective. We defined the objective as Iran having a nuclear programme that will always remain peaceful. In that way, instead of having two diametrically opposed objectives, we managed to entertain the same objective, which we could believe it was our objective, and the United States and the West could accept as their objective. (...) (It) was just a redefinition of the old objective: the old objective was that Iran should never have a nuclear weapons programme ; the new objective is still the same. (...) That is the nature of a globalised world: we cannot, we cannot - simply it is impossible - gain at the expense of others. A zero sum game, a game that is a win/lose game, will end up making everybody lose. So we either work for a positive sum game, where everybody will win, or we end up having a negative sum game, where everybody will lose. And if we understand that, if we understand that real important new dimension of the globalised world, then we can apply it to other issues, we can use the success of the nuclear diplomacy, for which we can all take pride, and apply it to the situation in the region. (...) Let's look at the Persian Gulf. Persian Gulf is our lifeline. And the lifeline of a lot of other countries in the region. Persian Gulf is becoming an area where a lot of challenges may emerge, from extremism to volatility in oil prices, to navigation, to environment. You know, around the Persian Gulf, everybody is building nuclear power plants. So nuclear safety is a common challenge in the Persian Gulf. (...) We can redefine the region, redefine the problems in the region in a way that we can resolve them. And I think it is quite possible. We can all agree on these principles: principle of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of international borders, rejection of interference in the internal affairs of others, even, we can go further, non proliferation of nuclear weapons, zones free from weapons of mass destruction, all of these principles we can all share. Then we can have cooperation in the area of environment, exchange of people, exchange of tourists, visitors. And then addressing the common challenges: fighting sectarianism, fighting terrorism, fighting extremism (...) in the area of economy, free flow of oil, maintaining some stability in the oil market, which is commonly shared by all countries in the Persian Gulf. The coming to security, we can deal with weapons, we can deal with military visits, we can deal with fighting extremism and terrorism (...)" © Frédérick Moulin 2016 - EU2016 - European Parliament - All rights reserved.