Iranian Ambassador to Tanzania Agha Jafari Mahdi
TANZANIANS, including
Muslim clerics, students from Dar es Salaam Universities, academicians and
ordinary people; joined their Iranian counter parts to celebrate the 35th
anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Dar es Salaam.
The
ceremonies were held at Tourism College in Dar es Salaam on Saturday morning, which
is the time when the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran Imam Khomeini
arrived back home on February 1, 1979 from exile.
Imam
Khomeini spent more than 14 years in exile, mostly in the Iraqi holy city of
Najaf.
He also spent some time in Turkey and France, before returning to Iran.
The
day when Imam Khomeini returned to Tehran marks the start of 10 days of
celebrations better known as the 10-Day Dawn festivities, which culminate in
nationwide rallies on February 11, the anniversary of the triumph of the
Islamic Revolution.
The
Iranian nation toppled the US-backed Pahlavi regime 35 years ago, ending the
2,500 years of monarchic rule in the country.
The
Islamic Revolution spearheaded by the late Imam Khomeini established a new
political system based on Islamic values and democracy.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Iranian
Ambassador to Tanzania, Agha Jafari Mahdi said as Iran celebrates the
35th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution, confirmed that Iran has no
permanent friends, but only permanent interests.
He said as
always with Iran, its international relations and domestic politics intricately
overlap, and its interests impact each other.
“Towering above
the others, its primary interest is to reduce the draconian weight of
international sanctions, which are squeezing its economy and threatening the
legitimacy of its clerical regime,” he said.
According to
him, Iran needs to patch up relations with the rest of the Arab world,
including Saudi Arabia to stem the dangerous politics of sectarianism that is racketing
up conflict within the Islamic world.
Thirdly, he
said Iran's support of Syria needs to lead it to the international negotiating
table, since its aim, much like Russia's, is to ease Assad out so conflict
declines, while retaining a dominant position inside a post-Assad Syria.
The ambassador
remarked: “Each of these interests represents huge challenges, and their
entanglement means the game must be played on all fronts simultaneously.”
He said for
most of its history, the Islamic Republic has suffered US sanctions, something it has learned to live with more effectively than
Washington or its allies might ever have imagined.
However, as the
web of sanctions, in the words of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
turned "crippling", not
least because the UN and EU added in their own, Iran's ability to sidestep them
has narrowed.
Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei's support of Hassan
Rouhani's election to the presidency in June 2013 signalled that Iran's
government credibility needed a makeover both at home and abroad in the toxic
wake of President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad.
Nuclear arms
negotiator Saeed Jallili, the clerics' presidential candidate, was publicly criticised
for letting negotiation opportunities pass.
The centrist, Rouhani, a previous
nuclear negotiator and insider, has since moved quickly.
With government backing, he pushed
forward November's Geneva Interim Agreement, and joined with six world powers
in January 2012 to start the "joint plan of action" (JPA), which
has frozen Iran's nuclear programme for six months in exchange for monthly
instalments of $4.2 billion in Iranian assets held in Western banks and
the suspension of some financial sanctions.
Though Western observers darkly predict
that Iran will use this agreement to buy time through a series of six-month
extensions, more likely is an Iranian commitment to the terms so as to avoid
further sanctions, already threatened by a dubious US Congress, so as to obtain
real relief for its struggling economy - a domestic necessity.
Rouhani himself negotiated a two-year
freeze in 2004 with the Europeans, which Iran respected, even as negotiations
floundered.
It was also Rouhani who negotiated the
original "additional protocol" under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), the tool used today - though incorporating even stronger
safeguards - by the international atomic watchdog for on-site inspections.
The alacrity with which states such as
Turkey and India have responded economically to Iran since the Geneva Agreement
indicates that Iran has more to gain from abiding conscientiously with the
inspections, than going rogue.
The other side of the sanctions coin is
opening global markets - the real prize for Iran.
Dr. Abbas Moghtadaie, MP
On his part, Dr. Abbas Moghtadaie, MP
and Member of Education and Research Committee of the Islamic Parliament of
Iran who was the chief guest at the ceremony said Iran, one of the developing
countries, has taken stringent measures in ensuring that African countries are
well developed economically, technologically and in cultural aspects as well.
He said Iran was a friend of Africa and
thus its major responsibility was to ensure that it renders help to the African
continent.
“Africa has been exploited for quite
some time by the Western imperialist powers. Now, it is ample time to liberate
the continent economically and culturally from the clutches of hegemony from
the Western imperialist powers,” he said.
He said as we observe this day, it is
our duty to ensure that we get what we need free from interference from any
power whatsoever.
He added that Tanzania was graced to
have good leadership, great land and potential resources for development.
“Combining all these qualities, Iran
would do whatever was in its capacity to transfer its technological knowhow so
that it also achieves its total economic dependence,” he said.
Sheikh Hemed Jalala Hemed
Winding up the celebrations, Sheikh
Hemed Jalala Hemed, Head of Hawza Al-Imam Swadiq (a.s) Kigogo Post in Dar es
Salaam said when Ayatulla Khomeini ascended to power in 1979, through Islamic revolution;
he transformed Iran into a scientific development.
He said Iran can be called as one of
the developed countries with nuclear energy, manufactures aircrafts and was
aimed at going to the mars for scientific exploration.
“Now Iran is the centre of learning, surpassing
other countries in the region although it faces economic sanctions from the
West,” he argued.
Sheikh Jalala told participants that we
should be proud of these achievements Iran has so far attained in the three
decades of its revolution.
Sheikh Musa Kundecha
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