West must understand Iran is a power

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says “Iran is an influential power in the region and the West must understand this reality.”

The Iranian chief executive made the remark during a meeting with his French counterpart Francois Hollande at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

Referring to Iran’s talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), Rouhani said, “With the commencement of the talks, when it became clear that Iran has a serious resolve, the atmosphere, which was created against the Iranian nation in the West, dissipated and a real and trust-building atmosphere was created.”

He said the most important message of the talks was that important global issues can be resolved through negotiations.

“These days’ negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 are highly important for building the future, and we hope that, by taking the rights and concerns of the Iranian nation into consideration, the nuclear issue would be resolved in a balanced way and win-win results come about for both sides.”

For his part, the French president acknowledged Iran’s special role in fighting terrorism in the region, and expressed hope that considerable collaboration between the two countries in other fields would follow a comprehensive nuclear agreement.