Idealogues or in fact demagogues recruit new soldiers, new terrorists. We need to draw that. Rose the foreign minister of iran for the hour next. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Mohammad Javad zarif is here. He has served as irans minister o F Foreign Affairs since 20 13. He was irans chief negotiator in the nucleic deal reached in 2015. On monday President Trump certified that iran was in compliance with the joint comprehensive plan of action but on tuesday the administration now new sanctions saying the United States will continue to aggressively target irans malign activity including their ongoing state support of terrorism, Ballistic Missile program and human rights abuses. This is minister zarifs 12th time at this table. Im pleased to have him back on the program. Welcome. Good to be back. Rose lots have happened since the last time i saw you. Characterize for me today how you think the relationship is between iran and the United States. The United States has a hostile policy towards iran for sometime and this administration is pursuing a more hostile policy. Its a misguided policy i think the allegations against iran are tired and dont stand any test in reality. And i think it would be best for the United States, the u. S. Should just look for its achievements, quote unquote in our region and see what it has achieved. Maybe all the wrong choices. Its allies are accusing each other supporting terrorism. I believe the United States needs to take a fresh look at the situation in our region and see where its interests are, how its dealing with important issues of stability and insecurity in our region and decide for itself where it wants to stand. Rose as you know in the conference or the summit, saudi arabia and some of the arab state allies asked the United States to join them in isolating iran. They believe youre engaged in these activities that the United States suggests you are as well. I just want to ask you who are behind the 9 11 terrorists attacks. Rose who do you think was behind it. Was it individuals or was it an act by the state of saudi arabia. We certainly know individuals came from saudi arabia, 15 of them. We also know the ideology came from saudi arabia. If you change the the ideology. If you just check from 2001 to now or even from 1 998 to now a lmost 94 if not more of terrorists incidents throughout the world has been instraw gated and perpetrated by people with that school of thought which is the official ideology of saudi arabia and promoted upon billions of billions of petro dollars across the globe spreading extremism everywhere. Its unfortunate because we believe that we need to have good relations with our neighbors and we want to have good relations with our neighbors. But they need to decide about their policy. Unfortunately for the united whether theyre buying thosek beautiful military equipment from the United States or not. Rose do you think thats a test for the United States. I believe it was stated by the president that he did not go to saudi arabia before he made sure that all those years were on the table. Rose because he thinks it will create jobs is the reason he gives for the effort to sell weapons to saudi arabia. May i just go back. Its good that they create jobs. But that should not be the yard stick that supports terrorism. Rose one thing i hoped to have with you and i think its interesting for the American People is, what is exactly a terrorist and who is a terrorist . For example, alqaeda is a terrorist organization, you would agree . Yes. Rose isis is a terrorist organization, you would agree. Yes. Rose hezbollah is a Terrorists Organization you would agree. No i wouldnt. Rose they are on the terrorists list. They are on the United States t errorists list. Rose and others. No. Again, lets supply a yard stick. Lets take the United Nations as an acceptable mechanism, an acceptable machinery to define for you who is a terrorist and who is not. Accept something, we cannot accept the United States being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, the executioner everything rolled into one. I believe it is important. We cannot have various yardsticks but one would be to see who is under the list of terrorists states or terrorists in the Security Council and the United States is permanent member of the Security Council. We have no laws in the Security Council. The Security Council considers taliban, alqaeda, isis as Terrorists Organizations. Rose so does iran. Each one of those four, so does iran. Yes. But unfortunately u. S. Allies. Saudi arabia and the united arab e mirates were two or three states recognize taliban before the United States overthrew them after 911. Saudi arabia were those. I dont want to engage in saudi bashing. Im talking about the United States accusing iran of supporting terrorism while its own allies have been on the record. Now they are exposing each other about who was first in supporting isis and other terrorist organizations. Rose lets make sure i have time to raise questions of america. Do you believe that saudi arabia supports alqaeda. Do you believe saudi arabia s upports, take one, supports which has new names now. Do you believe saudi arabia supports isis . I believe that a lot of saudi money rose not by the government. In fact some of them are in c harge oaf saudi Intelligent Services we know alqaeda when they engaged the soviets was a child of saudi intelligence services. Taliban will recognize, the taliban government which was sponsored alqaeda was only recognized by three states. Two of them were United States and even ruts. Rose the other was pakistan you said. Thats a neighbor. I dont want to deal with them because they have their own because as a neighbor they have a problem. But for saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates because s taying far away because pakistan isnt able and some other countries in the former soviet union are neighbors. But saudi arabia and united emirates are not even close but they support it. They recognize it. The money, and its clear, just ask any intelligence person money that went to isis, most of it came from these countries. Well more importantly rose not from the government per se. Well, that is to be investigated. Im not here to accuse anybody. Weve been accused by a lot of people about a lot of things and i dont know whether its good to accuse people. What im saying is the ideology came from saudi arabia. All of these people belong to the ideology that is promoted officially by unfortunately the government of saudi arabia and its being spread across the world. And everybody who engages in acts of terror in one way or another has been affected by that. Rose but you had the summit in which there was a call for in a sense for a recognition of where radical extremists terrorism was coming from. And that within islam, there had to be an understanding of what elements of who are using the religion or hijacking the religion to engage in terrorists activities and all muslim should be opposed, whether shia or sunni. I would agree with that and i would applaud such an effort n rose thats what they said. I believe everybody should come together and actually fighting these extremists idealogies and fighting them does not mean only through military means. This is much deeper. It should be a comprehensive strategy to deal with extremism and terrorism. Extremism and terrorism emanate from lack of hope. In addition to an ideology based on hatred and exclusion, there is the necessary Fertile Ground from which these idealogues or demagogues recruit new soldiers or terrorists. The way to do it is to provide identity, to provide hope, to provide dignity, and to provide economic future. These are whats lacking in the r egion and beyond. Rose when you look today what does iran want . What roll does it want to play in the world . Iran is a country that has been able to survive despite pressure, despite the war, despite sanctions. Weve been able to make progress, to make scientific achievements in spite of the fact that every restriction was imposed on our country and our people. Even our students were prevented from studying physics and mechanics. At university. But we made advances for one reason. Were content with our size, with our geography, with our national resources. Rose and you have global ambitions. We did not have global ambitions and most importantly we rely on our own people. We do not rely on foreigners for our independence, for our security, for our economic process. We would like to work with the outside but we did not rely on them. We derive our security from our people. We derive our legitimacy from our people. Remember that secretary mattis the other day said that iran president ial election are a sham because somebody chose who should run in the president ial election. People in iran waited in line for 10 hours to work for a sham. Or even worse. People in los angeles waited in line for four hours. Rose he brought up another fact, people who want to run. Youre talking about the ability of those allowed to run. 1200 people registered to run for president. Can anybody anywhere in the world run an election with 1200 candidates. There has to be a process through which some who may not be qualified for the job could be eliminated. Rose they were too moderate in their views to be allowed. The fact is in all democracy you have a process through which candidates are excluded. Now, here you have the primaries and the caucuses. Rose theyre all allowed to run in the primary. They were excluded because they lost. You still need a number of signatures to be on the ballot. So every place you have a mechanism. I do not want to engage in interference with other countries but as an observer not as foreign minister, i can tell you if you do not have money, if you do not necessary financial contributions from big corporations or from others, you may not be able to stand for an election in many rose or like Bernie Sanders who had a very successful campaign. He primarily raised money from at the end of the day and i have a lot of respect for senator sanders. At the end of the day, what is important you have people who believe United States only members of this establishment can run. People can make a lot of allegations. At the end of the day its for the American People to decide if they have the necessary choice and they show that by coming to the polls. Iranians could have stayed home. If they want to stay home in iran or if they want to stay home in los angeles, just answer this question. Why would iranians having lived in the United States for generations stand in line for four hours in los angeles in order to run for a sham election. Rose let me tell you why. There is always a love for the soil where you were born. No no. But you do not engage in a few futile exercise. The love of my compatriates who live in the United States, unfortunately theyve been insulted by President Trump in the must limb ban. Rose by the revolution in a sense and maybe they lost property or some other things. Just a small segment and thats a historical fact and there are procedures to redress that. But at the same time these people who live in the United States not simply out of love for their country but out of the recognition that they had a real choice. Several things about that influence. I mean the german intelligence says that you still have great desire to have a Nuclear Capability. We do have Nuclear Capability but we have foregone a nuclear weaponnage. Rose did you do that because of the sanctions. No. We did that long before the sanctions started. I believe the sanctions were misguided and misplaced and did not rose conventional wisdom by almost everybody you were hurting so badly by the sanctions that you were willing to come to the negotiating table and you will take the sanctions away, we will agree. Charlie. I presented a proposal to the french, the britts and the germans on march 23rd, 2005, before all these sanctions were presented, at that time i was ambassador here at the un and i was the nuclear negotiator. The chief negotiator is our current president and i was negotiating on his behalf. I presented the proposal which is very similar to the final deal that we reached ten years later. Rose why did it take that time to do it. I tell because at that time the ambassador was sitting in the state department preventing that deal from taking shape and today rose representing the Bush Administration. Representing the Bush Administration and today hes trying to do that all over again. Rose hes not part of the government. I know. There are quite a few of them. Rose theres Great Division about the nuclear deal as you know. I understand. The sanctions did not bring iran to the negotiating table. The United States decided that its zero enrichment options which it had pursued from 2003 to 2013 was not going to get it anything. What did sanctions produce. It produced a lot of economic hardship. I grant you that. But was that the objective of the sanctions or was it to change irans policy. Rose what do you think . I think it was to change irns policy. Rose on nuclear weapons. No. On centrifuges because everybody knew, 2007 you have a National Intelligence estimate. Nie, 2007 states that iran is no longer from their perspective no longer, im trying to be accurate but in 2001, this is during Bush Administration before obama, nie established that iran is no longer pursuing nuclear weapons. Rose everybody in the Obama Administration thought you were pursuing nuclear weapons. John kerry thought that and the negotiator thought that and he has said that. Nobody is nobody they make a wrong assertion. The iaei, the narc Atomic Energy agency established in established in november of 2015 that the socalled possible military dimensions of Irans Nuclear program rose let me ask you about a shia crescent. It is said who is your es steanld leader who i understand reports to the supreme leader, you can help me understand where his level of reportage goes to is very much interested in having a clear route from iran to lebanon to support hezbollah. Is that true. In 2004 when King Abdullah made that statement, he made it in washington. With all due respect and he knows i have a lot of respect for him, this was an attempt in fear mongering that has continued, that has only brought misery and despair to our region. Theres no attempt to create a crescent or corridor, iran has simply come to the aid of countries that have been fighting extreme subpoena and terrorism. Rose you didnt come to the aid of lebanon you keep to the aid of hezbollah. No. It wasnt hezbollah territory that was occupied. It was lebanonese territory that was found. Rose by the syrians. No by the israelis. Rose also by the syrians. The syrians were in lebanon at the consequence of in which we had no roll. It was their decision, it wasnt our decision. It was a decision they took, they invited them to go and then they asked them to leave so they did. But here i represent iran and no other country. I believe we are there in order to help people fight storm. You see these arguments have been negated time and time agan and no one observes that is a part of shia crescent. How would you explain, in 2014, isis was within hours of occupying rose and very close to baghdad. Now we went to the aid of both. Rose by doing what. By sending our advisors. Rose they were more than advisors were they not . No, no. Rose general suleiman was there. Yes, he was there with weapons and advisors. Its the people of iraq who are fighting the terrorism. It was the Kurdish People who fought terrorism. They needed support, they needed help they needed people to help organize them and we were there within two hours. They should tell me where in that crestent the iraq these are just fear mongering scenarios, narratives that are created to, that are prevent, elaborated, articulated in order to discriminate fear. This is not what we asked for. We have asked, we have called for a political solution in syria where everybody, shia, sunni, christians, jews, everybody would participate in the running of the government. This is what we want. Rose what do you think of president bashar assad and whats happened to syria. Its none of my business to think about president bashar, its the people of syria. We should provide them with the opportunity to decide for themselves. Rose its none of your business, thats, for you to say that is in a sense im making no no no. Rose its not his business no matter what he does. I think what happens in syria has been the consequences of people outside syria imposing red lines from this gentleman or another gentleman or lady should or should not be in the government. Ro