Iran rejects any hegemony in nuclear energy program: Gharazi

Press TV’s Gisoo Misha Ahmadi has conducted an interview with Mohammad Gharazi, one the eight candidates running in Iran’s June 14th presidential vote.

What follows is a rough transcript of the interview.

Press TV: The newspapers have called you the surprise of the 92 (the year 1392 in the Iranian calendar, beginning March 2013) and that is because we had not heard of you before the registration period. So your name, when it appeared on the list of the presidential candidates came as a surprise.

Can you tell us more about when you decided to enter the race and why had not you done that before?

Gharazi: I am 72 years old and I have been an active revolutionary for 60 years; sometimes as a minister and sometimes as a fugitive or in other posts.

This is the impression of the press and the media in the news, which is surprising to them, but for the people of Iran it is not surprising.

Many expected my presence but I did not want to start campaigning prior to signing up as the presidential candidate.

Press TV: Basically, according to law, I think it was not right for the hopefuls to…

Gharazi: Yes of course, it should not have happened. I did respect that while I did not want too much publicity but in my personal opinion it was not an issue of suddenly making up my mind, it was due to my sixty years of experience in revolutionary activity and I am quite familiar with the country, with the government, with the revolution and the different factions after all these years.

Press TV: Why had not you decided to step in the presidential race before? For example in 2009 or the years before that.

Gharazi: Because in those days there was such a busy atmosphere during the past two to three elections, for example the one in 1997.

Suddenly a huge group of people had come in order to take part in the elections and to choose between two candidates, which did not really make any difference between Mr. Khatami and Mr. Nategh Nouri.

Well, Mr. Khatami finally won the elections, but I already knew that Mr. Khatami would face a lot of challenges and in those days what I want to say today did not have too many supporters.

The reason that today I have decided to come is that today the society has become familiar with what I want to say.

Press TV: And what are those?

Gharazi:
Basically I am a kind of person who believes in the vulnerability of governance through the Western method. For instance, democracy defined as confrontation of two groups; I prefer a kind of democracy in which the society is dominant on the political parties but not vice versa.

When we come to governing a country, democracy does allow us to have inflation, but as a Muslim I believe that a government that lives with inflation has its hands in the pocket of the poor and this is against religion.

During the past 100 years we have constantly had inflation dominating the society.

Those days I said this in the government and other places but nobody listened to that and the society was not prepared to accept what I was saying because some groups had gained a lot of reputation for themselves.

In this term, I believe that not only the society understands what I say much better than before, but also many political parties have come to the feel but they have failed. That is why I believe I can say what I want to say much better than before.

Press TV: Do you consider yourself a Reformist or a Principlist?

Gharazi: I believe in the core of the Revolution. These political groups that consider themselves as pro-revolution can only claim to be a Reformist or a Principlist only if they have not failed.

Both these two groups have failed in their test in the society and I consider them as sidelines of the Revolution not its core and as you can see in order to get some vote they start denouncing other efforts instead of relying on their own efforts that they have done for their people.

Those who rely on denouncing others have lost their connection with the society.

The society might vote in order to have a government but that vote would be for the confrontation of the political groups and not the authenticity of the Revolution itself.
Press TV: How do you evaluate the political scene right now? How strong do you consider your rivals?

Gharazi: In my campaign I have two words as my motto. One is the development of democracy and the other one is the development of Islamism and the two parties, who were in power, did not pay enough attention to these two words, the republic aspect has been neglected.

If I become president, one of the things that I would do is that I would allow the people to chose the provincial governors through direct vote and the reason for this is that during the past 33 years some 330 provincial governors have been changed or removed from their posts. This means ten governors in every year.

For instance, a provincial governor has been assigned from Tehran to go to Kermanshah but after one and a half to two years that person returns back to Tehran.

Physically, urban development in our provinces has not been bad, but when it comes to political, social and administrative development, they are way behind and the youth in provinces are coming to the capital because they have no support there and this is what I mean by developing the republic aspect and in the development of Islamism, what I mean is that the country has to be governed to the benefit of those in need without any inflation.

Government employees, laborers and other hardworking people form the basis of our society but so far many governments have emptied the pockets of such people to the benefit of their own projects and I consider this totally against the teachings of religion and the development of Islamism and that is why I emphasize on the development of the republic aspect and the Islamic aspect in the society.

Press TV: From what you explained, am I correct in assuming that you will not form a coalition with any of the candidates and you will not…

Gharazi: Not at all. Of course I will never do that. As I told you and if you could correctly translate this, I do not see any benefit in the presence of other factions, instead all I see is the repetition of the procedures of the past when the country was facing administrative, economic and political challenges. These groups may be legal but they have no benefit at all.

Press TV: Could you tell us more about your plans? Let us start with the economy, do you have any plans to curb the inflation, unemployment?

Gharazi: During my entire life I have had many plans and I have implemented many of them and I have always tried that my plans would be as feasible as possible.

I was the oil minister in Iran for four years and during four years enough oil was sold and enough money was brought into country.

During those years the petrochemical industry became active and gas pipelines became active.

When you enter a ministry there are people there who are working hard and you could look at this as an opportunity and direct them and through your management they could move towards development and become self-reliant and I have run a number of ministries with the same method and my plan is to be totally against inflation to shape up the production and also the employment in the country so that the society could stand on its own feet.

These few words describe the plans and the plan itself describes the mechanism and those working inside this system are the ones who believe in it and start implementing the plans.

A plan without an objective and a plan without an outcome does not have any meaning. The seven to eight plans, which have been implemented, during the Pahlavi regime and even during the revolution, none of them have been efficient.

All that happened was that these plans came on thousands of pages but in the end there were people who said we do not have enough money, we do not have enough dollars or we do not have enough technology and in the end the entire plan was in shambles.

The objectives must be able to lead the plans to the national benefit and not only according to the administrative interests.

For 20 years I have been a minister, I have been an MP, I have been a provincial governor and for 60 years I have traveled across Iran just like any other Iranian but my main objective is to bring the people into the scene and seek their cooperation.

You might not remember this but there was a time that there were less than one million telephone lines in the country and I was the minister of telecommunications and by focusing on the people’s needs today we are seeing that in the Middle East there is no country like ours that has more than 120 million telephone users and a great amount of income has been provided and also lots of employment for our younger generation and numerous telecom networks have been created.

Yet some people might come up and say that Gharazi has no plans, I am telling them that all this, which has been done, was based on plans.

My method is a little bit different than those who come and put a written notebook ready in front of you.

Press TV: Where does the subsidy reform plan stand in your economic plans?

Gharazi: This is not the first time when a subsidy plan takes place. When I was oil minister I sought the permission of the late Imam, that time gasoline was ten Rials per liter but then we sold it for 30 Rials per liter and gave the 20 Rials in advance to those in villages who were above 60-yeas-old and that effort did not create any trouble at all for the country.

Paying subsidies to those in need is a necessity but you have to be careful not to let other sectors of the country get hit while you are doing this.

Unfortunately, after the country decided to pay subsidies in the new system, it left a negative impression in the minds of people.

Subsidies are supposed to diminish the inflation rate but in this case inflation got worse.

Subsidies are a necessity but only when the country’s national currency is stabilized.

When your money is stable then you have authority, and when you have authority, then you can boost production, and when you boost production, then you have employment, then some parts of the society become self-reliant and those who do not become self-reliant are those who need help, then you must inject the subsidies in a way not to destroy other parts which have been corrected and reformed.

The plan is obvious and it is there and the way we are supposed to implement it has also been thought of; I have even calculated it in numbers and digits.

Press TV: Now that you mentioned it, what about the devaluation of the Rial? Do you have any plans to fix this problem?

Gharazi: The main reason that led to the inflation in the country is based on the devaluation of the Ria, but this has a 100-year background. From 100 to 110 years ago our country was facing devaluation of Rial against the dollar.

It is not bad for you to know that our Rial is, basically, the Spanish Royal, which means belonging to royalty and during the time of Uzunhassan, who was the great grandfather of the mother of King Ismail, he corresponded with the Spanish king demanding him to have trade relations with Iran, where the Spanish king said that if you want to have trade relations with Spain, the value of your currency has to be equal with our currency. So over there it was Royal and here it was Rial.

It was in the middle of the Nasereddin Shah reign when this balance was broken; it was at a time when the Russians from the north and the British from the south were putting pressure on Iran.

During the Constitutional Revolution, one Rial was equivalent of one US Dollar, but after the 1920 coup, one US Dollar was equivalent of three Rials.

When Reza Shah Pahlavi left Iran, one Dollar was 15 Rials, when Allied Forces came to Iran and started putting their costs on the shoulders of the people, one US Dollar was 20 Rials. When Ardeshir Zahedi came to power as prime minister in the 1953 coup, one Dollar was 35 Rials.

When Mansour took office, one Dollar was 68 Rials and after the Revolution when Bani Sadr became president and finance minister at the same time, the value of our currency dropped from 68 Rials for a single Dollar to 300 Rials for a single Dollar.

During my time as the oil minister, those four years, our currency rate was kind of stable and it stood at 40 to 45 Rials. When the government of Mr. Mousawi came to an end, the value of the Rial against the Dollar was 1500; then during Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency it became 4500 Rials for a Dollar and During Mr. Khatami in office it was between 9000 to 10,000 Rials for a single Dollar and between 30,000 to 35,000 in this current government.

This is an accepted norm that the governments must not spend more than the money they make, but what happens here is that some governments make promises to people and then they do not have enough money to implement and fulfill those promises and then they start taking this money from those in need in the society. Up until today all these governments have spent more than their income.

A matter that I would be standing on firmly would be spending as much as I earn but that would be in case there would be a good turnout, so that I could win the elections and if we could have a 55 million turnout in the elections, then we will be able to spend as much as we earn and this would immediately halt the inflation spike, then we could do a lot of things.

For example, if we owe some money then we could ask others to wait and if we have enough income we will pay our debts.

Currently the government is covering its debts through publishing paper money, which is totally wrong and a fragile effort.

Press TV: Dr. Gharazi, you talked about earning 55 million votes and you do not have a campaign headquarters. How do you think you can win those votes if you are not talking to the public, if you do not have …

Gharazi: That is very simple. Now the national television has given us some 600 minutes of time and I will be elaborating all these issues for the people of Iran. I will tell them that because I am willing to form an anti-inflation government, then how can I possibly go and spend money that belongs to others? This would be some kind of a hypocrisy that would add to inflation.

The reason that I have entered the elections right now is that the people have felt the inflation. Now before forming any campaign headquarters the previous governments have already done this for me by putting more pressure on the people but the decision is up to the people.

It does not need more explanation especially when recently people are under a lot of pressure but if the media cooperate with me and explain about my ideas to the people, there might be a possibility but if this does not happen, others say that we are going to fix life for the people, but I do not see this in their image so that they could control inflation.

If they cannot do this, then we would have a government of inflation, then I would be ahead.

Now I would go forward and I would go and tell everybody that what I said was right, but I hope that one day we could have a government without an inflation in the country.

No job could be fulfilled without the support of others, now the ground is set and the country belongs to the people.

I say that a government, which is responsible towards the people because the previous governments have served the people but their main duty had been to stop the flow of inflation, which they have not been able to fulfill but I am responsible.

Press TV: Dr. Gharazi let us turn to the issue of the foreign policy since we do not have much time left. How do you evaluate the route that the P5+1, the negotiations with the P5+1, has taken?

Do you believe that this is the right path to take and what about direct negotiations with the United States?

Gharazi: I do not believe in the concept of such a negotiation. When there was the 1953 coup in Iran by the Americans, I was 12 and the late Prime Minister Mosaddegh, when he negotiated with the United States and when they realized that he had some problems, then they made up their mind to launch a coup against Iran.

Because the negotiations take place behind closed doors and the enemy is not in the field, the people are not informed. If Mosaddegh did not negotiate with the Americans there was a probability that they did not put this much pressure on Iran, then the Americans launched the coup and then the Iranians responded to them 25 years later.

We do not have a nuclear issue, we do not have a problem. When I was the provincial governor of Khuzestan, the Iraqis attacked the city of Dezful and killed dozens of people that was when we went to the late Imam and asked his permission to use the same weaponry that they used against our people and he said No! because we are Muslims we cannot do this. We do not want to have a nuclear bomb and religiously it is forbidden for us.

We are capable to gain access to technology of building a bomb but we do not believe in this and we do not think that it would be a right thing to do.

The Americans are bitter about some issues and that is why they are willing to take advantage from the situation on issues related to the Middle East.

Right now there are other countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and Northern Africa, that are looking forward to Iran, even though their governments might disagree with us. For example Turkey has turned into a 100 percent Islamic state even though its government may have some issues.

I think that any kind of setback in our nuclear doctrine towards the West will be totally irrational and I do not think that the issue of nuclear energy is something technical, but it is rather political and I am certain that we are not doing anything wrong in this aspect and they are putting pressure on us through their intelligence agencies.

It would be impossible for us to accept any kind of hegemony especially from the United States. We have shown this before in our confrontation with the Mongols, with the Americans and with the British.

Our leaders during the Constitutional Revolution were put aside, but the nation still stood firm and this is a truth about the Iranian people.

We naturally resist against any kind of foreign aggression. Now if they want to fight then we will fight, if they want to make peace we will make peace. This should be in the field but not behind the negotiating table.