Iranian president calls U.S. relations "a curvy road"
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani on Monday called relations with the United States "a curvy road," saying he hoped the Trump administration will "settle down" enough for his nation to better understand it.
Rouhani also criticized Saudi Arabia after it just hosted President Donald Trump's first foreign trip, saying that the kingdom "has never seen a ballot box" while Iran just hosted a successful presidential election in which over 40 million people voted.
"The Americans do not know our region, that's what the catch is," Rouhani said in response to a question from The Associated Press. "Those who provide consultations or advice to the Americans, unfortunately, they are the rulers who either push America awry or with money, they just buy some people in America."
Rouhani decisively won a presidential election on Friday, securing another four-year term. The vote served as a referendum on Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, as well as a vote of confidence that his government will be able to help the country's sputtering economy. Trump has threatened to try to renegotiate the deal.
"We know what we are doing," Rouhani told CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer. "The basis of military power is national power, and this power is from the back of elections. This power is made possible by people going into the ballot boxes."
Rouhani says that Iranians are "waiting for this government to become stable intellectually" and that "hopefully, things will settle down ... so we could pass more accurate judgments."
"Unfortunately, Americans have always made mistakes in our region," Rouhani said. "When they attacked Afghanistan (and) Iraq, when they made sanctions against Iran. In Syria, they made mistakes, and also in Yemen."
Rouhani further criticized the Saudi summit that Trump attended on Sunday, describing it as a "show-off" that "will not have any political and practical values."
"The issue of terrorism cannot be solved through giving money to superpowers," Rouhani said.
Rouhani made a point to stress that Trump's visit came amid Iran's presidential election, saying that such elections "are not in their (Saudis') dictionary."
"I hope that the day will come that Saudi Arabia will adopt this path," he said. "They should have polling stations in place for the people and let the rulers not be on a hereditary basis. They should be picked by the people."
The Sunni kingdom and Shiite power Iran haven't had diplomatic relations since early 2016. That's when Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric and protesters in Iran attacked two of the kingdom's diplomatic posts. Saudi Arabia immediately cut diplomatic ties and other Sunni Arab countries in the Gulf have taken a harder line on Iran since.
Trump repeatedly has criticized Iran in speeches on his first foreign trip. In Israel on Monday, he warned of "the threat posed by Iran" through the possibility of it acquiring nuclear weapons and its support of militant groups.
Also Monday, the foreign ministers of France and Germany said their countries want to work with Iran following Rouhani's re-election but are pressing Tehran to keep to the nuclear deal and to help de-escalate Mideast conflicts.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France is convinced that Iran under Rouhani will have "an important role in the pacification" of the region. "We expect Iran to behave responsibly ... not to support terror," said his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel.
At the Tehran press conference, Rouhani also defended Iran's ballistic missile program, something heavily criticized by the Trump administration. In February, just two weeks after taking office, the Trump administration sanctioned more than two dozen people and companies in retaliation for a ballistic missile test, warning it had put the Islamic Republic "on notice."
"The U.S. leaders should know that whenever we need a missile test because of a technical aspect, we will test," he said. "We will not wait for them and their permission."
Rouhani added: "Our missiles are for peace, not for attack."