Democracy, only solution to regional woes: Iran president
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the solution to regional problems does not lie in the use of force but rather in respecting democracy, adding that the era of military coups has come to a close.
Rouhani made the remarks in an address to a huge crowd of people in Iran’s western city of Kermanshah on Sunday, a day after Turkey said it had largely crushed an attempted military coup against the government.
“We live in a region, where some still think that they can transfer power through coups or overthrow a government elected by people’s votes with the use of military tanks, artillery, aircraft and helicopter,” he said.
They “have failed to realize that the era of coups is over, and that coups and tanks are not the solution. They must come to the understanding that the solution to problems is democracy and respecting the votes of the majority,” he added.
Rouhani said, “Today is the day when issues can be settled at ballot boxes, and people can make their voice heard” through their votes.
The botched coup began late on Friday, when a section of the military blocked Istanbul’s iconic Bosphorus Bridge and strafed the headquarters of Turkish intelligence and parliament in the capital, Ankara.
Tanks, helicopters and soldiers clashed with police and people on the streets of the two main Turkish cities while explosions and gunfire rang out.
Thousands heeded a call by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take to the streets in a bid to foil the coup, which was blamed on Fethullah Gulen, an accusation “categorically” rejected by the US-based opposition cleric.
In his remarks, Rouhani also touched on last year’s nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries, saying the Iranian nation “cut off the hands of aggressors and the US as a result of the JCPOA.”
In the nuclear negotiations, Iran managed to consolidate its right to use peaceful nuclear energy, he added.
Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany signed the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 following two and a half years of intensive talks.
Under the deal, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US would be lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.
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