Iranian President Speaks at UN General Assembly
ANDERSON: Well, this is Connect the World. 22 minutes past 8:00 in London. Now this year's UN general assembly has been dominated by one man, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. He delivered what was a wide awaited speech on Tuesday in which he offered immediate negotiations over his country's nuclear program. My colleague Christiane Amanpour sat down with Mr. Rouhani hours after the speech and asked him about what is his new diplomatic push.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Mr. President. Nice to see you. Salamu alaykum. Nice to see you again, exactly. Please. Welcome to CNN. Thank you for doing this for us. I want to ask you what it feels like to be what some people have called the "It" man of this UNGA, highly anticipated. You seem to be the focus of attention, and unusually for Iranian presidents, people are looking at you with some, at least, cautious optimism. What does it feel like to be in this position?</s>HASSAN ROUHANI, PRESIDENT OF IRAN (through translator): Before beginning to respond to your question, I would like to actually say my greetings to the people of America, who are very dear and near to the hearts of the Iranian people, and to wish them a good time and good times ahead. Now for any president, in order to use an opportunity to the benefit of others would require him to use the platform given by his people to project that in places such as the United Nations.</s>AMANPOUR: There was a lot of expectation, maybe too high expectations, that you and President Obama might at least shake hands today at the United Nations. Nobody thought there was going to be a formal meeting. But perhaps you would at least say hello, shake hands, break the ice. But you didn't. Why didn't you?</s>ROUHANI (through translator): There were some talks about it, in fact, to perhaps arrange for a meeting between President Obama and myself so that, given the opportunity, we can talk with each other. And the preparation for the work was done a bit as well. The United States declared its interest in having such a meeting and, in principle, Iran could have, under certain circumstances, allowed for it to happen. But I believe that we didn't have sufficient time to really coordinate the meeting to the full extent that we needed to. But speaking of the icebreaking that you mentioned, in my opinion, it's already beginning to break because the environment is changing. And that has come about as a result of the will of the people of Iran to create a new era of relations between the people of Iran and the rest of the world. Our hope, our expectation, in fact, indeed, is that all nation and this nation as well will respond positively to the people of Iran.</s>AMANPOUR: Are you authorized to start talking, negotiating, with the United States? Are you authorized by the Supreme Leader back in Iran?</s>ROUHANI (through translator): Now we have to remember that when it comes to the United States, for 35 years, there have been no relations between the two countries, between Iran and the United States. The higher officials of the two countries have never spoken with one another, especially at a level of president. You know, they have for two presidents to sit down. This has not happened for 35 years. So necessarily we must give time for diplomacy to work itself, for dialogue to come about, for circumstances to be laid properly. The Supreme Leader of Iran has said that should negotiations be necessary for the national interests of the country, that he, in fact, is not opposed to it. He has specifically mentioned in a recent talk that he is not optimistic regarding the issue of talks with the United States. But when it comes to specific issues, government officials may speak with their American counterparts. If an opportunity had risen today, and the prep work for that had been done, probably the talks would have taken place, primarily focused on the nuclear issue or on developments on the Middle East. And therefore the Supreme Leader has, I can tell you, given the permission for my government to freely negotiate on these issues.</s>AMANPOUR: One of the things your predecessor used to do from this very platform was deny the Holocaust and pretend that it was a myth. I want to know, you, your position on the Holocaust. Do you accept what it was? And what was it?</s>ROUHANI (through translator): I've said before that I am not a historian personally, and that when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust as such, it is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general, I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime that the Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jewish people is reprehensible and condemnable.</s>ANDERSON: The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaking with Christiane. And you can see that interview in full tonight at 10:00 London time, 11:00 Berlin right here on CNN. The latest world news headlines, as you would expect, at the bottom of the hour are just ahead. Plus, a devastating scene in southwestern Pakistan, a powerful earthquake killed hundreds and leaves thousands more homeless. We'll get you an update on the rescue efforts underway there. And remarkable evidence of just how powerful that earthquake was. I'm going to show you the world's newest island, created out of this earthquake. That, up next.