Excessive use of force of the dollar will lead to its demise, says Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif

Excessive use of force of the dollar by the USA will lead to its demise, said visiting Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Wednesday.

"Sooner or later, the excessive use, by the United States of America, of the dollar as a force - they do it with China, they do it with Russia, and they do it with us - will lead to its demise.

"The force of dollar in international economic relations is enormous but the excessive use of any strength will gradually reduce its impact," Mr Zarif said in an interview with a select group of journalists in the city.

The veteran diplomat was in the city on a two-day visit to attend Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) conference. In the interview he spelt out his observations on Bangladesh-Iran relations, Middle-East scenario, US sanctions, Rohingya issue and Kashmir situation.

Terming the sanctions imposed by the USA on Iran 'economic terrorism and arm-twisting' Mr Zarif ruled out any bilateral talks with the USA.

"No bilateral talks," he said when asked about any possibility of talks with the USA to ease the current stand-off.

Asked to comment on the fall out of the sanctions in Iran's trade with other countries including Bangladesh Mr Zarif said, "Sanctions are means of enforcing law. What the USA is doing is not enforcing any law. In fact it is enforcing illegality and the measures USA is taking against Iran are punishing countries who want to observe the law."

"United Nations Security Council resolution has called upon all countries to normalise their relations with Iran but the USA is punishing the countries who want to normalise the relations."

"Iran is an important global and regional economic player. We are in the energy market, in the petro-chemical market and putting pressures on other countries not to work with Iran also causes harm to them", he said.

We call this economic terrorism because they are targeting ordinary citizens to change their political orientation.

"Now the way to deal with them to reduce the dependence on the means that gives the USA such advantage to determine the future of our relations"

"We do not interfere in the economic relations between Bangladesh and the USA as we believe it is the right of Bangladesh to have good relations with any country they want."

"We believe that people have the right to choose their own economic and trade partners without the interference from outside, without others trying to arm-twist, to bully them to change their own pattern of international relations,"

"If we allow the bully to have their way, it will not lower their appetite. Rather, it will increase their appetite."

We have seen that time and again. We have seen that allowing this to happen will further exaggerate the situation. But practically we can engage in whole range of activities.

"We can use different means to avoid this illegal pressure as we can use our own national currency for trade. If we do all these we can bar others in imposing illegal pressure and illegal restrictions," he explained.

We do business with China, with Pakistan , Iraq and other countries and we use our currencies.

"Bangladesh is producing jute, pharmaceuticals. We produce petrochemicals. So we believe that we can have trade in our own ways," he added.

Asked how Iran is addressing the impact of the sanctions Mr Zarif said, "Way out is the resilience, we need to make our economy resilient, and I think it is in the interest of everybody to make their economy resilient. We should not make our progress dependent but that does not also mean isolation or alienation."

"We should not be dependent on the vicious will of others for our own economic progress".

"That is how we have absorbed the shock after the US exit from the nuclear deal. We have now recovered almost one third of our currency value since the imposition of the US sanctions. We have addressed, partially the inflation and the recession problem. So we are moving in the right direction and we are relying on our own resources on our own people."

He pointed out that for the last 40 years, Iran has achieved improvement in every area because of the denial by the US.

"During the Iran-Iraq war they denied weapons to us. We produced our own weapons. We have built missiles which can shot down the most sophisticated US drone. These missiles are not built by anybody, but by Iranians."

"They denied selling nuclear fuel for our reactor. But we did not close down our reactor. We have built the fuel ourselves."

"It is important that we rely on our own people and in the same time to be engaged with others. These are not mutually exclusive. Relying on your own people is the source of strength and engaging with others are mutually reinforcing," the Iranian FM continued.

ROHINGYA ISSUE: Lauding Bangladesh for being 'extremely gracious and generous' in welcoming and hosting such a large number of refugees under difficult circumstances, the Iranian FM said his country can understand the pain of Bangladesh 'too well as we are hosting three million Afghan refugees in Iran for the past 40 years'.

So we fully understand the pressure your economy and your population facing in dealing with this situation, he said.

"The only possible resolution of this problem is repatriation with full dignity and with full safety and honour for the Rohingya people and we have called upon the government of Myanmar to take necessary measures including the recognition of the citizenship of the Rohingya people which is an extremely important aspect of their honourable repatriation".

Because, without addressing their citizenship issue, the hounourable repatriation will be problematic.

We are totally in agreement and in cooperation with the government of Bangladesh.

In spite of lot of noise there is very little burden sharing from international community, the Iranian Foreign Minister said.

Iran has called upon Myanmar to accept its responsibility and to materialise the country's promises on repatriation of the Rohingya people through effective and realistic measures.

SUBCONTINENT: Iran is concerned over the situation in Kashmir and Assam, the Iranian Foreign Minister said when asked to comment on the recent developments in Kashmir.

Both India and Pakistan are good friends to Iran and we want a peaceful sub-continent," he said adding that conflict between the two nuclear armed countries cannot be expected by any peace-loving country.

Hoping that the interest of the Muslims in Kashmir will be taken care of by India, he called upon both the countries to resolve the issue through dialogue.

MIDDLE EAST: On the Middle East situation, Javad Zarif said that Iran has proposed non-aggression pact with Saudi Arabia and it is ready to sit with its regional rival any moment.

"You cannot buy security from outside. The USA can be very happy to sell weapons but it can't sell security," he commented elaborating that instead of buying weapons the regional countries should spend the money on development.

"Saudi Arabia has spent 87 billion US dollars for buying weapons, UAE, which is a country of one million people, has spent 22 billion dollars. And they have not bought it from us or from you or from any Muslim country. They have bought it from western countries. We have an army of one million people but we have spent only 16 billion US dollar for our defence including the salaries of our army".

Now, if we could use this 100 billion dollar for our development, the Muslim world can be turned into paradise, he noted.

"It is the friendship and cooperation that can buy security, not weapons," he added reiterating his country's call for a regional dialogue in the Middle East.

Highlighting the potential of Bangladesh and Iran, he said, both of our human resources are competitive globally and we can take advantage of this. He also stressed the need for private sector partnership between the two countries saying, 'we can use our mutual necessities in order to advance trade and to use our private sector to explore the possibility in our markets'.

We can also engage in using our national currency, the Iranian FM said.

Terming the relations between the two countries centuries-old, he said both the countries have been engaged for the 'interest of our people, interest of this region, unity of the Muslim ummah and to address global hostility'.