Iranian President-elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad said on Monday he wants to develop ties with all countries, especially in Europe, provided they respect Iran’s ”democratic choice”, the student-run news agency Isna reported.
”We want equitable and advancing relations with all countries in the world, particularly with the Europeans. But we advise Western countries to treat us in a way that does not show prejudice,” said Ahmadinejad, who is to take up his duties as president in August.
”Western countries … cannot profess to be defenders of democracy and free choice and at the same time attack the democratic attitude of the Iranian people, as demonstrated by the participation of 30-million voters in the presidential election,” he said to a group of Iranian ministers.
Ahmadinejad said his government will focus on the ”population’s problems and build a country that is better equipped to respond to enemies of the people”.
After Ahmadinejad’s surprise election victory on June 24, former United States embassy hostages claimed he was one of the main actors in the Tehran ordeal that lasted 444 days between 1979 and 1981.
However, Ahmadinejad’s allies as well as several reformist leaders — who participated in the hostage-taking and are politically opposed to the new president — have denied he was involved.
Meanwhile, Austrian authorities said on Saturday they have documents implicating Ahmadinejad in the assassination of Kurdish opposition leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna in 1989, which Iranian officials have also denied.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday the accusations were ”Zionist propaganda”. — Sapa-AFP