Iranian Ambassador to NZ Seminar

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-10-27 06:48am

Just came back from a seminar with the Iranian ambassador to New Zealand. The topic was "Iran's position towards New Zealand" although very few of the questions were actually on topic.

Here are the highlights:

Iran is actually quite geographically diverse compared to its neighbours with cold mountain ranges, hot and humid areas and even temperate zones.

In response to "What conditions would have to be met for Iran to recognise Israel as a state?" He said, "When a peaceful and fair resolution is achieved for the Palestinian situation."

We shouldn't expect relations between them and Israel to improve anytime soon.

They’re not too thrilled with the idea of US forces in the surrounding countries.

When the US was their ally there were told to build 30 nuclear plants to provide energy for their 34,000,000 population. Modern US policy stipulates that their oil should be enough and that they don’t need to build a single reactor.

New Zealand’s decision to not support the war in Iraq had a positive impact on Iran-New Zealand relations. They greatly appreciate having warm relations with any country that will treat them as equals. New Zealand-Iran relations have been pretty good since New Zealand opened an embassy there in 1979. They opened theirs here in 1986.

Iran did not support the war in Iraq, although they believe that they are more secure with Saddam gone.

They hated the Taliban for what they considered to be “Extremist Islam”. They consider themselves a more moderate Islam.

They do not have separation of church and state.

They buy our wool, we buy their oil. They also used to buy our red meat but they’ve halted all red meat imports and increased their fishing industry. They are however investigating the viability of importing New Zealand agricultural supplies and someone that had something to do our fishing industry was speaking to him and handed him a business card.

Women have to cover their hair by law although the full burkha is considered extreme. Lobby groups are speaking out against this.

62% of Iranian college enrolments over the past year were female.

Germany, Italy and Japan are among Iran’s top trading partners.

The Mossad agents we arrested were sentenced to six months in prison. They served three before being let out on parole. In Iran they would have been charged with treason and sentenced to life in prison at minimum.

I’ll add some later if I remember any more.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-10-27 06:55am

Ah, also:

It was the Iranian National Security Advisor that said that he doesn't believe it will really matter who wins the US election, although he noted that more damage was done to Iran by the democrates.

The ambassador personally does not believe that the election result will make any difference to Iran as the US's middle east policy usually remains consistant regardless.

Consequentally, my question was "What was Iran's position towards NZ's refusal to back the Iraq war?"...I think it was actually the only one that was on topic.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-10-27 07:48am

How did the nuclear reactor answer get queried? Did someone ask them about their nuclear program? Also, why did you go to this seminar? Was it just one of those "Oh look, Iranian Ambassador is coming to town, why don't I go?" things?

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-10-27 04:02pm

Stofsk wrote:How did the nuclear reactor answer get queried? Did someone ask them about their nuclear program? Also, why did you go to this seminar? Was it just one of those "Oh look, Iranian Ambassador is coming to town, why don't I go?" things?

I can't remember the exact question, someone mentioned something about their nuclear program and the US position towards it. As for why I was there, it's just a group that I go to every few months or so. Every now and then they get in some person related to international politics to give a little talk and get some feedback. They can be quite interesting, last year there was someone from the American consulate there, she mentioned that 25% of Americans can't find the US on a map. There were of course more important things mentioned but that's the one that stuck.

Predator · Post by **Predator** » 2004-10-28 02:22am

The meeting was with the Hawke's Bay branch of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, the branch was founded by a friend of mine, Ken Aldred, former secretary for peace under NATO, very interesting guy, used to be my neighbour. I'm on the committee of the branch, but Ken, with his experience and contacts generally ends up doing most of the work.

I was the one who asked about Israel, and about Iran's opinion on US assessment that Iraq was a threat to its neighbours. The ambassador said he was a threat - and recalled images of French leased mirages over Tehran - but that Iran did not believe in unilateral action, that force must only be used with UN approval, and so on.

I believe I recall him mentioning 20 rather than 30 nuclear reactors, but he stressed a number of times that IRan wants to reduce its own need for oil, so that it can export more. He mentioned that Iran uses 1.4 million barrels a day, and produces about 4 million, and also imports 1.4 billion dollars worth of petrol - so one of the objectives with going nuclear is to reduce the amount of oil used and improve exports.

I might think of more later.