Speaking at his 1st news conference at the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research in capital Tehran as the elected president of Iran Rohani thanked people’s massive turnout in the election saying, the 11th presidential vote was not just an election but a victory for Iranians.
 

Mr Rohani said relations with neighboring countries is a top priority in his government in response to a question on his future plans about relation with Persian Gulf Arab countries asked by Aljazeera reporter.

He said he is going to establish “close and friendly” relations with all 15 neighboring countries based on “respect to mutual interests”.

He said he hopes for closer ties with all Persian Gulf countries especially with Saudi Arabia which shares cultural, historic and regional ties with Iran.

"Saudi Arabia is a brother and neighbor... with which we have historic, cultural and geographical relations."

On the crisis in Syria, Mr Rohani said, “The final deciders about fate of Syria are Syrian people and Syrian government”.

“We object terrorism, we object civil war and we object intervention of foreign countries in Syria’s internal problem,” he added.

Asked about Iran’s nuclear issue he said his first step would be to be transparent about the matters which have resulted in sanctions against the country which he noted, everyone knows are “tyrannous”.

Iran’s president-elect said country’s nuclear program has always been transparent, however, he tries to be more clear about under-question issues.

Answering a question on halting uranium enrichment for the purpose of confidence building, Rohani said he believes today there are so many other ways for confidence building which can be used now.

He referred to his previous agreements, as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council with former France president Jacques Chirac in 2005 as an option, which he said was then agreed by France and Germany but Britain blew it under pressure from the United States.
 

He said the then agreement can be pursued now as a good solution.

"The US should not interfere in our internal affairs, recognize the rights of Iran including nuclear rights and stop its unilateral policies and pressure," he said regarding possibility of future talks with the US.

"The next government will not give up the legitimate rights of the country."

Rohani won Iran’s June 14 presidential election with an outright victory, gaining 18,613,329 votes, or 50.7 percent of a total of 36,704,156 ballots.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians, including more than 1.6 million first-time voters, were eligible to participate in the presidential election.

The Interior Ministry put the voter turnout at 72.7 percent.