Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. As President Trump visits the middle east, his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paves the way on American policy ahead of his visits. But his policy statements rarely give other countries the same rights of defense, as the USA reserves for itself.
Tillerson said Washington hoped Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s newly re-elected president, will halt his country’s support for “destabilizing forces”, end ballistic missile tests and carry out democratic reforms during his second term as soon as possible.
“We hope that if Rouhani wanted to change Iran’s relationship with the rest of the world, those are the things he could do,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he was travelling with President Donald Trump.
President Rouhani, is a cleric who, with foreign minister Javad Zarif broke the taboo of holding direct talks with the United States and reached an international deal in 2015 to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.
The Trump’s administration is likely to keep putting pressure on Iran over its weapons programs, as well as what it sees as Tehran’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East, former US officials and analysts say.
Tillerson stated, the United States hopes Rouhani will “begin a process of dismantling Iran’s network of terrorism,” and ending its financing of terrorist groups, as well as providing them personnel and logistical support “and everything they provide to these destabilizing forces that exist in this region. We also hope that he puts an end to their ballistic missile testing.”
Despite the nuclear deal, the United States still considers Iran a “state sponsor of terrorism” for its support of groups such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia. Which leaves the main stream media trying to explain why the Obama administration gave millions of dollars in cash and a free pass on nuclear issues, if the State Department truly believes Iran is a state sponsor of “terrorism?”
“We also hope that he restores the rights of Iranians, for freedom of speech, of organization, so that Iranians can live the life they deserve,” Tillerson said. “That’s what we hope this election will bring.”