West cannot intimidate Iran under any circumstances

A political analyst says the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has made it clear in his address that the West cannot intimidate Iran under any circumstances, Press TV reports.

“So, basically he [the Leader] is saying that Iran will pursue its right, it will not appease Western countries, Iranian nuclear program will continue to move forward, Iran will not accept any limitations,” Mohammad Marandi said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday.

In an address to thousands of clerics, officials and people of the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz on Saturday, Ayatollah Khamenei called for the destruction of nuclear weapons across the world, saying Iran never plans to build such weapons.

The Leader added that Iran believes that nuclear weapons must be obliterated, and it does not intend to make nuclear weapons, but if it had not had this belief and had decided to possess nuclear weapons, no power could have prevented it.

“He [Ayatollah Khamenei] gave the extreme example, saying that under no circumstances would we ever pursue nuclear weapons, but theoretically speaking, even if we were, Western countries are in no position to block Iran,” Marandi pointed out.
The analyst also pointed to the Leader’s criticism of Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a recent row and added that Ayatollah Khamenei has called on the three branches of government to work together closely at a time when Western countries are basically waging war against Iran.

Marandi further noted that even though a dynamic political order exists in Iran with different political factions criticizing each other in the media or in the parliament, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution believes that at a time when Western countries are waging war, the heads of the three branches must be more vigilant.

“Ayatollah Khamenei said that he [the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] stepped beyond the bounds because he showed a film that does not prove anything against the Speaker of the Parliament or his brother, the head of the Judiciary. And he [the Leader] also criticized the Speaker of the Parliament for going a bit too far in his response to the President,” the analyst stated.

On February 3, Iran’s Majlis voted to dismiss Labor and Social Affairs Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami over his failure to remove Saeed Mortazavi from his post as the head of the Social Security Organization.

During Sheikholeslami’s open impeachment session, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad played a tape showing a meeting between Mortazavi and Fazel Larijani, the brother of the Majlis speaker.

The video purportedly showed Fazel Larijani attempting to use his family’s political status for financial gain. Fazel Larijani has declared that he would file a lawsuit against Mortazavi and President Ahmadinejad for what he called an intrusion of privacy.

PRESSTV