This week watch cspan campaign 2024 coverage in the final week of campaigning before the first in the nation campaigning. Here are closing arguments. Watch voters meet the candidates and experience what its like on the campaign trail. Watch on the cspan networks, cspan now free mobile app or online. Your unfiltered view of politics. More now from davos switzerland with Iran Foreign Affairs minister when asked of recent attacks in iraq and pakistan. Iran respects the sovereignty oy targeting israeli camps. Over 30 minutes. Iran has used ieve thise] is a gross violation of their sovereignty, both countries have protested, why are you doifng this . We enjoy very good relations with both of the countries. We have talked and agreed for several times on the necessity of fighting terrorism and providing securities to very long shared borrs agreements between us, what happened yesterday actually two days back and the semiautonomous region had to do with the elements and agents of the Israeli Regime. We carried out they carried out operations inside iran, terrorist act attacks and israel took responsibility for them especially there was one against one of our facilities and the republic of iran, kind of action that is carried out bethe region against our people, the republic of iran we will respond to it vigorously. We hit the base and region of iraq and we hit it with precision missiles. Does that mean we hit and targeted iraq . We targeted israel. That remains to be common enemy ofoth of us but on [inaudible] they were given no none of this squares with the idea of good relations with iraq. This is a country that you have claimed to have friendly relations with. Its it seems hostile act that is how iraq is reading it. We respectly do territorial integrity the and so much of iraq and targeted in iraq. The intelligence is undisputable and there are elements and there was agents and those that had a hand in making iran and took responsibility for that. I repeat, we retaliated and they were targeted by usnd our executive people are examining the matter, sharing information with the security advisers of iraq confirmed that. This belonged to mossad and there was no mistake made by us and on pakistan, none of the about what happen in iraq, we had we have a Security Agreement between us and according to this, the government and the local people in iraq according to this are obligated to provide security to our borders and what we did, what was within the confines of this agreement, security re what we have to defend ourselves and any kind of abuse of iae taking advantage of the region against us on pakistan, none of the nationals of the friendly and broadly country of pakistan were targeted by the drones of iran. There is, this group which is an iranian terrorist group. And are somehow they are somehow they have taken shelter in some partsq of the province in pakistan. For several times we have talked to the a lot officials i pakistan and the Security Forces there. They carried out some operations in iran especially ingn■he polie station. They killed our security personnel. We responded accordingly. We only targeted iranian terrorists on the soil of pakistan before this i talked to my colleague, the honorable foreign minister of pakistan and i assured him that we do respect the sovereignty the and territory the and integrity of pakistanls we dont allow National Security to be played with and we have no reservation, no hesitations when it comes to our National Interest and thosero groups inside pakistan and those affiliated to Israeli Regime and what we did was actually in line with the security of pakistan, iraq and the whole rion. When that the security of iq and pakistan are the security of the republic of iran. Both disagree with what you said. Minister, let me ask you, you came onl my program and my in october 29th and she asked you, do you want the war to spread and you said no, we do not want the war to the spread, we do not want escalation. Since then, hezbollah has launched attacks against israel, the houthis are attacking ships in red sea. You have attacked iraq, you attacked pakistan. It certainly seems that the actions of allies do not suggest that you are trying to keep this war from spreading. It seems as though you are encouraging an escalation. I agree with you in the weste witnessing enlargement of the crisis and detentions, but■; t n what happened seventh of october and hamas is Liberation Group that has been fighting against occupation to liberate the occupied territories of palestine. Th an operation. Of course, we never agree with or approve of the killing of women and children anywhere in the world but i want to tell you that it is not rooted on what happened on the seventh of october. It is rooted in 75 years ago when palestine was occupied by the Israeli Regime. From the very beginning from the israeli side of the war in gaza which followed the seventh of october operation we gave warnings that if they attack the war crimes and genocide against gaza and west bank do not stop, the war will spread out. It will become larger. It doesnt mean that we wanted it we want today play a enla. No, it was because we had a proper understanding of the situation and the conditions in the region and as the result of this, some of those groups that you mentioned, they started t defend gaza and the United States made two strategic mistakes. The first one, they threw theiri regimes war and genocide. And they sported it. Its unrelenting and continued up to now. The second mistake was that they brought, the conhe read sea and they started this by killing some of the people in yemeni boats. First they killed yemeni people in the boats and, you know, theres Maritime Security, something thats important to us and yemen also cares about this but the security and the red sea is now very muc developments in gaza. We would all b at lost, it would be to detriment if the killings and the attacks and again ride in gaza do stop because if it happens then the crisis will persist. Explain to me that you felt iran had the right what you describe as terror attacks and terrorist groups that were attacking iran and you retaliated in iraq and in pakistan, why does israel not have the right to retaliate to the october 7th terrorist attack . What we did against most of the base and against terrorist group inside pakistan, they have nothing to do with the situation in but the yemeni front and the israeli say they are retaliating against terror atck on them. We dont consider hamas a terrorist group. Hamas is Palestinian Liberation Movement that has been formed against the israeli occupation. We cannot erase history. For 75 years we have had the occupation of palestine. This is a reality. What about the rights of the palestines . On innocent women, elderly people, civilians, raped, use rape as instrument of war, you say you condemn all of this presumably because it is terrorist activity. Doesnt israel have to right to respond . What about palestinians, are they not human beings . What about their rights . You know, Israeli Regime doesnt accept the un resolutions about the restoration of the rights of the palestinians and the form thation of the palestinian state. They all have been ignored by the Israeli Regime. According to International Law when a war breaks out, there should be two things, one is differentiation and proportionality. The officials of the Israeli Regime seventh of october, 1,200 israelis were killed, okay. So there has been this retaliation. You know, they did not differentiate between the civilians and military. The war has seen that. More than 16,000 children have been killed, the women up to now more than 24,000 palestinians have been killed. Proportionality. They have not been observing it. So do you think 24,000, this is ten times more than the number. Israeli is occupying regime but hamas is the liberation movement. I repeat, we dont we dont welcome the killing of women and children anywhere in the but the solution is not a military one. They have to respect the rights of the the red sea and the ships, is there a situation in which iran would get involved and start blocking the shipment of blocking ships in the straight of hurmus . First off, we do care about the Maritime Security and the shipping safety. Our experts exports, exports are done by the sea so the security of the red sea and persian gulf are very, very important to us. We benefit from it otherwise we wouldnt be able to export our oil. Secondly, we have information that these days the yemenis and the sooties are nearing a real peace agreement. We believe that when the u. S. Got involved in it and this is not going to be good news for this agreement, we will audiotape benefit from Maritime Security and the yemenis also believe that. What happens . It has to do with the genocide of the war of the Israeli Regime against the people of gaza and th yemenis defending the palestinians. The genocide in gaza stops, then it will leadhes and attacks in the region. You didnt ask will iran start involve itself in blocking any ships. I think your answer is no . We have always been on the Positive Side of the developments in the region. You should not forget that in the past years and in order to fight against isis in iraq and syria and in the region, some of our best military were killed and murdered. The security of the region is our own security. Do you do you believe that hezb get more involved in a more attacks or counterattacks in israel . In the last one hundred days i held talks twice with mr. Honorable general of hezbollah. 48 hours before the humanitariaa meeting with isked him. We got involved in this somehow because we wanted to defend the people of palestine and the whole world witnessed that in six days when there there was not even one bullet that was fired at its real and they were committed, committed to ceasefire but in the last few days something new happened. Since 2006 there was this agreement that the capitals in beirut and tel aviv were not targeted, they were not targeted each gaza have no achievement by killing women and children but israel brought the war outf gaza and they assassinated one of the leaders of hamas not in gaza but in beirut. So this has created a new situation but the genocide war of the Israeli Regime comes to the a halt, then it can lead to utter■p crisis in other parts of the region against israel but we should not forget that today somehow involved in the war in the red sea also and today we see that people in gaza are under attacks and they are starving in gaza and the west bank. This means that the war will go on. So at any moment it is possible that the severity andensity of the war will rise. We should understand that war is not the solution and they are not going to destroy continuing the war and israelis prisoners will not be released if they continue the wars, the solution■r is very clear. Opening up the humanitarian corridors and stopping the splacements of palestinians towards Sinai Peninsula in egypt. Today the United States is more concerned about how they are going to run gaza after the war. The post war gaza, but in our talks with the different and various palestinian leaders, some ideas there, the most democratic one is that all of the palestinian leaders with older viewpoints an differences of opinion and the referendum participated by the palestinians in both gaza and west bank and naturally the■o resistance against occupation according to what we have heard from the palestinians will continue their activities but the institution of the rise of the palestinianst in a democratic way that is election under supervision of the United Nations but still under the impression thatar and continuing it and they are, of course, relying upon the United States. All the leaders in our region believe that if the war stops today. We believe that the political solution i Pay Attention to and we never believe that the war is the solution. About a year ago they say there were reports that iran and the United States were maybe getting to the a point of some kind of revival■o of the Iran Nuclear Deal. That is completely closed. I wondered whether you had any comment on that. Why was it not possible to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal from your point of view . We started talks with the European Countries and some indirect talks with the United States and ultimately these were met with the initiative that was set forth by the kingdom of oman and there were indirect talks with the United States and there were efforts made by the king of oman and the they all wanted to bring together and closer everybody that is a party to the nuclear deal. There are efforts made between iran and the United States. Therefore we we believe that in f the american side have enough will and required will, then we can achieve the deal. So you are involved with the ukraine war, you are supplying russia with weapons . Very important point you made and touched upon. On ukraine, we have never ever provided any drone, any missile to the russia to be used against ukraine. Less than 11 months ago i had an agreement with my counterpart the Ukrainian Foreign minister. I told him if you claim that iranian made drones or weapons against you, please, give us pieces of evidence so we agreed that there would beeam comprised to meet in the city of oman. They discussed the issue for hours. They say they will go back to kyiv and gather information, prove id back in the next round of the meeting but they didnt give us, they didnt show any kind of proof that thenian m used them. I dont think its a you see, we have sold iranian drones to Different Countries in the region within the framework of our defense cooperation. You know, it is not difficult for any country to copy our drones, we not responsible for that. Even for that, the ukrainians have not given us any piece of evidence my dear colleague, just we a ant the killing of people, women in gaza, syria, yemen. We have always■6iv condemned the killings and we believe that wan that too and the solution is never war and fighting than, you know, russia we have enjoyed strong relations antis with russia. We have asked them several times have you ever used iranian made weapons against ukrainians . Up to now, ukraines are claiming that iranian drones are being used against them but they have not given us not one piece ofn d joseph barrel connections and contacts encourage s ukrainianso supply them to us but they have not. This is the basis allegation. When i look at the data i irn able to export more and more oil. Are the sanctions against iran in place, are you able to export as much oil as you want . The sanctions imposed iran are unilateral illegal. We consider it our natural right to export our oil and and the United States is not the master of the world to the decide about other countries. Thos dver and we defend our rights and within the framework of the International Law we will continue to do so. The event in gaza, many people predicted that the arab countries that have normalized relations with u. S. Israel, that has not happened. Saudi arabia has talked about or at least privately there are reports talked about continuing objective to normalize relations with israel. This seems to the leave iran more and more isolated in the region. First of all, we recognized that israel. We believe its just occupying powers, 75 years of occupation. This does not create right for israel to exist. Mr. Zararia, algeria was occupied by another country. The listening occupation of algeria came to an end, right so t the region enter foreign interactions and decisions, whatever decision they come up with is their own business and their own foreign policy. Isolated more and more countries recognizing. But we are witnessing that some countri tt during the time of trump and under the pressure from him they normalize with israel. Ed from this the and they are not facing more problems. Todaysrael is the one that is isolated. Its the positive part of the developments in the region because its our region and it is very important to us, the security of the region and the progress in the region. In our administration, we have put very high on our agenda the policy of interacting and cooperating, collaborating with our neighboring countries, with all of the countries of the world, dialogue and the progress with all the parties including the western countries. This is something that has come to the attention of the administration. Do you want the see an end to the hostility and conflict with the United States . Your still part of the government that encourages chant death to america and calls america the great satan and you say you want better relations and return to the nuclear deal. How are these things how can both be true . Theres so much state propaganda designed to maintain the hostility and the rage against the United States. Firstly, anything that we see that is based on mutual by the American Administration will be welcomed by us. Mutual respect. If you respect us, we will respect them. Secondly, the problem that is there is that in the year 2015 we reached a deal with the United States, jcpoa, the nuclear deal, it created all the parties. That deal was turned into official the and recognized resolution in the Un Security Council but it was the United States that broke broke the deal, broke the promise for us. Theres no difference between biden, obama trump. You guys were still which parting death to america, you still had the trampling on american flag, you still had the great satan as the slogan, that didnt suggested the desire for better relations. You know, when the Nuclear Agreement was finalized they kept violating it from administration of obama and the worst mistake, the worst decision was but in our government we said that we will be ready, we waited for them the. We stay committed to it for a long time but the United States kept violating the deal. They were still breaking theirst it seems that it has become a part of the dna of the American Foreign policy. It doesnt make the difference what administration is in power. We want the United States if they are committed to the deal, we will also be commit today the deal. Mutual respect. Anything unconstructive, you can friendly, the behaviors of the United States, we will retaliate to them. It would be in the favor of the peace and security of the world if the United States would become less hostile would become coopere confrontational. Thank you very much. Youve been frank as always. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. [applause]