Speaking to Al Alam on Sunday, Dehqan said Iran is ready to interact with the world with ultimate dignity and strength and never accepts negotiations as a weak side.
“As a principle, Iran never sits at a negotiation table where it is considered to be the weak side. Iran is ready to negotiate with ultimate dignity and strength and does not accept any pre-condition or threats”.
Asked about recent remarks by US President Barack Obama about having the military option on the table in treating with Iran, the defense minister said, “Regional and international changes in the past 20 years and US interferences have taught Washington political and military officials and their allies the lesson that first, costs of a war is more than its benefits, and second, entering a war is easy but coming out victoriously is not guaranteed”.
He said the United States is obviously not after going on war on another country, meaning occupying a region or removing a governing system, but it wants to impose its will and see it dominant.
The threat of ‘military option is on the table’ is not a new thing and it has been mentioned every now and then on different excuses since the Iraq war on Iran, Dehqan added.
Iranian top military official said in the issue of US military confrontation with Iran, “this point cannot be forgotten that Israelis have always been provoking US actions against Iran; but Americans have shown that they are wiser than that and they analyze the condition”.
Asked about possibility of a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Obama, Dehqan said, “Everything is possible in the world of politics”.
The important thing is that simple negotiations and meetings are not important and what really matters is the actions that follows those talks, he added.
Rouhani left Tehran for New York to attend the 68th meeting of the UN General Assembly.
He is scheduled to meet with several world leaders including French President Francois Hollande on the sidelines of the UN meeting.
Rouhani has not ruled out the possibility of a meeting with US President Barack Obama during his upcoming New York visit.
“Meeting Barack Obama, the president of the US, is not on the agenda of my trip; of course, depending on the circumstances that come up, everything is possible in the world of politics,” President Rouhani said.
SHI/SHI