President-elect Outlines Foreign Policy Of New Gov't

Tehran, June 18, IRNA – President-elect, Hassan Rohani, said on Monday that the new government will develop friendly relations with all the neighboring countries. Addressing his first press conference after his landslide victory, Rohani said in response to the question of al-Jazeera TV that his government would have ties with whole the 15 neighboring states, especially Saudi Arabia, to which several hundred thousand Iranians pay Haj pilgrimage annually. He said the ties would be based on mutual respect, especially with the Persian Gulf littoral states in light of strategic importance of the Persian Gulf. ˈIˈm proud of being an official from Iran the signatory to a security pact with Saudi Arabia in 1998 and I hope that in the near future, we would have very good relations with our neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia.ˈ As for Syria, he said he believed Syrian people should have the final say in all their countryˈs affairs. He said that Iranian government is against terrorism, civil war and foreign intervention in Syria, believing in peace based on the will of Syrians./end