A handout photo provided by the office of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shows him speaking during a live broadcast interview yesterday.
AFP/Tehran
Iran’s president said yesterday his country’s nuclear deal with the West would create better prospects for faster solutions in Syria and Yemen, two of the Middle East’s worst conflict zones.
In a live appearance on state television, Hassan Rouhani said the July 14 agreement had shown diplomacy and engagement were the only way to solve serious political problems and end crises.
“The final solution in Yemen is political, in Syria the final solution is political,” he said. “The agreement will create a new atmosphere. The climate will be easier.”
The near two years of talks between Iran and six world powers—Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany—was a “Herculean task” but was worth it, Rouhani argued.
“I was never despondent,” he said of the talks which seemed to be faltering at numerous stages, with negotiators at loggerheads over the terms of the deal.
“Not for a single second did I doubt our success,” he said, noting that “interaction” had triumphed over possible confrontation and surrender, neither of which “held much water” as options.
Under the agreement, Iran will curb some but not all aspects of its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions that have pulverised its economy in recent years.
But Iran remains at odds with the West over Syria and Yemen.
Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has sent money and military advisers to aid his fight against rebels seeking to topple his regime.
And in Yemen, a Saudi-led air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels has been heavily opposed in Tehran, leading to a near collapse of its ties with Riyadh.
The kingdom accuses Iran of meddling in Arab states, including Yemen and Bahrain.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, the chief American negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks, sought to assure Middle East allies yesterday that the deal would make them safer, as he began a regional tour in Egypt and later flew to Qatar.
Saudi civilian killed in shelling
Shelling from Yemen killed a civilian yesterday across the border in Saudi Arabia, which has been leading air strikes against rebels in the war-torn country, a civil defence spokesman said.
The civilian died when a projectile hit his house in the Saudi city of Najran before dawn. It had been fired from an area of northern Yemen under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the spokesman was quoted as saying by official Saudi news agency SPA.
At least 49 people, mostly soldiers, have been killed on the Saudi-Yemeni border since a Saudi-led military coalition launched air strikes on the Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen on March 26.
