The following is the
full text of Ayatollah Khamenei’s inaugural address delivered on August
30, 2012 at the 16th Non-Aligned Summit in Tehran
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
All
praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Two Worlds, and may peace and
blessings be upon the greatest and trustworthy Messenger and on his pure
progeny, his select companions, and all the prophets and divine envoys.
I
welcome you honorable guests, the leaders and delegations representing
the member states of the Non-Aligned Movement, and all the other
participants of this great international summit.
We
have gathered here to continue a movement with God’s guidance and
assistance and to give it new life and momentum on the basis of the
current conditions and needs in the world. The movement was founded
almost six decades ago thanks to the intelligence and courage of a few
caring and responsible political leaders who were aware of the
conditions and circumstances of their time.
Our
guests have gathered here from different geographical locations, far
and near, and they belong to different nationalities and races with
different ideological, cultural and historical characteristics, but just
as Ahmad Sukarno, one of the founders of this movement said in the
famous Bandung Conference in the year 1955, the basis of establishing
the Non-Aligned Movement is not geographical or racial and religious
unity, but rather unity of needs. At that
time, the member states of the Non-Aligned Movement were in need of a
bond that could safeguard them against authoritarian, arrogant and
insatiable networks and today with the progress and spread of the
instruments of hegemony, this need still exists.
I
would like to point out another truth. Islam has taught us that in
spite of their racial, linguistic and cultural differences, human beings
share the same nature, which calls them to purity, justice,
benevolence, compassion and cooperation. It is this universal human
nature which – if it can safely steer away from misleading motives –
guides human beings to monotheism and understanding of God’s
transcendent essence.
This
brilliant truth has such potential that it can form the foundation of
societies which are free and proud and at the same time enjoy progress
and justice. It can extend the light of spirituality to all material and
worldly endeavors of humankind and it can create a paradise on earth
for human beings in advance of the other-worldly paradise, which has
been promised by divine religions. And it is this common and universal
truth that can form the foundations of brotherly cooperation among the
nations that do not share any similarities in terms of outward
structures, historical background and geographical location.
Whenever
international cooperation is based on such a foundation, governments
will build their relationships with each other not on the basis of fear
and threats, or greed and unilateral interests, or mediation of
treasonous and venal individuals, but on the basis of wholesome and
shared interests and more importantly, the interests of humanity. In
this way, governments can relieve their awakened consciences and put the
minds of their peoples at ease.
This
values-based order is the exact opposite of the hegemony-based order,
which has been upheld, propagandized and led by hegemonic Western powers
in the recent centuries and by the domineering and aggressive
government of America today.
Dear
guests, today after the passage of nearly six decades, the main values
of the Non-Aligned Movement remain alive and steady: values such as
anti-colonialism, political, economic and cultural independence,
non-alignment with any power blocs, and improving solidarity and
cooperation among the member states. The realities of today’s world fall
short of those values, but the collective will and comprehensive
efforts to change the existing realities and achieve these values,
though full of challenges, are promising and rewarding.
In
the recent past, we have been witness to the failure of the policies of
the Cold War era and the unilateralism that followed it. Having learnt
lessons from this historical experience, the world is in transition
towards a new international order and the Non-Aligned Movement can and
should play a new role. This new order should be based on the
participation of all nations and equal rights for all of them. And as
members of this movement, our solidarity is an obvious necessity in the
current era for establishing this new order.
Fortunately,
the outlook of global developments promises a multi-faceted system in
which the traditional power blocs are replaced with a group of
countries, cultures and civilizations from different economic, social
and political origins. The striking events that we have witnessed over
the past three decades clearly show that the emergence of new powers has
coincided with the decline of the traditional powers. This gradual
transition of power provides the non-aligned countries with an
opportunity to play a significant and worthy role on the world stage and
prepare the ground for a just and truly participatory global
management. In spite of varying perspectives and orientations, we member
states of this movement have managed to preserve our solidarity and
bond over a long period of time within the framework of the shared
values and this is not a simple and
small
achievement. This bond can prepare the ground for transitioning to a
just and humane order.
Current
global conditions provide the Non-Aligned Movement with an opportunity
that might never arise again. Our view is that the control room of the
world should not be managed by the dictatorial will of a few Western
countries. It should be possible to establish and ensure a participatory
system for managing international affairs, one that is global and
democratic. This is what is needed by all the countries that have been
directly or indirectly harmed as a result of the transgression of a few
bullying and hegemonic countries.
The
UN Security Council has an illogical, unjust and completely
undemocratic structure and mechanism. This is a flagrant form of
dictatorship, which is antiquated and obsolete and whose expiry date has
passed. It is through abusing this improper mechanism that America and
its accomplices have managed to disguise their bullying as noble
concepts and impose it on the world. They protect the interests of the
West in the name of “human rights”. They interfere militarily in other
countries in the name of “democracy”. They target defenseless people in
villages and cities with their bombs and weapons in the name of
“combating terrorism”. From their perspective, humanity is divided into
first-, second- and third-class citizens. Human life is considered cheap
in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and expensive in America and Western
Europe. The security of
America and
Europe is considered important, while the security of the rest of
humanity is considered unimportant. Torture and assassination are
permissible and completely ignored if they are carried out by America,
the Zionists and their puppets. It does not trouble their conscience
that they have secret prisons in various places on different continents,
in which defenseless prisoners who have no legal representation and
have not been tried in a court of law are treated in the most hideous
and detestable way. Good and evil are defined in a completely one-sided
and selective way. They impose their interests on the nations of the
world in the name of “international law”. They impose their domineering
and illegal demands in the name of “international community”. Using
their exclusive and organized media network, they disguise their lies as the
truth, their falsehood as true, and
their
oppression as efforts to promote justice. In contrast, they brand as
lies every true statement that exposes their deceit and label every
legitimate demand as roguish.
Friends,
this flawed and harmful situation cannot continue. Everybody has become
tired of this faulty international structure. The 99 percent movement
of the American people against the centers of wealth and power in
America and the widespread protests of the people in Western Europe
against the economic policies of their governments show that the people
are losing their patience with this situation. It is necessary to remedy
this irrational situation. Firm, logical and comprehensive bonds
between member states of the Non-Aligned Movement can play an important role in finding a remedy.
Honorable
audience, international peace and security are among the critical
issues of today’s world and the elimination of catastrophic weapons of
mass destruction is an urgent necessity and a universal demand. In
today’s world, security is a shared need where there is no room for
discrimination. Those who stockpile their anti-human weapons in their
arsenals do not have the right to declare themselves as standard-bearers
of global security. Undoubtedly, this will not bring about security for
themselves either. It is most unfortunate to see that countries
possessing the largest nuclear arsenals have no serious and genuine
intention of removing these deadly weapons from their military doctrines
and they still consider such weapons as an instrument that dispels
threats and as an important standard that defines their political and
international position. This
conception needs to be completely rejected and condemned.
Nuclear
weapons neither ensure security, nor do they consolidate political
power, rather they are a threat to both security and political power.
The events that took place in the 1990s showed that the possession of
such weapons could not even safeguard a regime like the former Soviet
Union. And today we see certain countries which are exposed to waves of
deadly insecurity despite possessing atomic bombs.
The
Islamic Republic of Iran considers the use of nuclear, chemical and
similar weapons as a great and unforgivable sin. We proposed the idea of
“Middle East free of nuclear weapons” and we are committed to it. This
does not mean forgoing our right to peaceful use of nuclear power and
production of nuclear fuel. On the basis of international laws, peaceful
use of nuclear energy is a right of every country. All should be able
to employ this wholesome source of energy for various vital uses for the
benefit of their country and people, without having to depend on others
for exercising this right.
Some Western countries,
themselves possessing nuclear weapons and guilty of this illegal
action, want to monopolize the production of nuclear fuel. Surreptitious
moves are under way to consolidate a permanent monopoly over production
and sale of nuclear fuel in centers carrying an international label but
in fact within the control of a few Western countries.
A
bitter irony of our era is that the U.S. government, which possesses
the largest and deadliest stockpiles of nuclear arms and other weapons
of mass destruction and the only country guilty of its use, is today
eager to carry the banner of opposition to nuclear proliferation. The
U.S. and its Western allies have armed the usurper Zionist regime with
nuclear weapons and created a major threat for this sensitive region.
Yet the same deceitful group does not tolerate the peaceful use of
nuclear energy by independent countries, and even opposes, with all its
strength, the production of nuclear fuel for radiopharmaceuticals and
other peaceful and humane purposes. Their pretext is fear of production
of nuclear weapons. In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they
themselves know that they are lying, but lies are sanctioned by the kind
of politics that is
completely
devoid of the slightest trace of spirituality. One who makes nuclear
threats in the 21st century and does not feel ashamed, will he feel
ashamed of lying?
I
stress that the Islamic Republic has never been after nuclear weapons
and that it will never give up the right of its people to use nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes. Our motto is: “Nuclear energy for all and
nuclear weapons for none.” We will insist on each of these two precepts,
and we know that breaking the monopoly of certain Western countries on
production of nuclear energy in the framework of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty is in the interest of all independent countries, including the
members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The
Islamic Republic's successful experience in resistance against the
bullying and comprehensive pressures by America and its accomplices has
firmly convinced it that the resistance of a unified and firmly
determined nation can overcome all enmities and hostilities and open a
glorious path to its lofty goals. The comprehensive advances made by our
country in the last two decades are facts for all to see, as repeatedly
attested by official international observers. All this has happened
under sanctions, economic pressures and propaganda campaigns by networks
affiliated with America and Zionism. The sanctions, which were regarded
as paralyzing by nonsensical commentators, not only did not and will
not paralyze us, but have made our steps steadier, elevated our resolve
and strengthened our confidence in the correctness of our analyses and
the inborn capacities
of our
nation. We have with our own eyes repeatedly witnessed divine
assistance in these challenges.
Honored
guests, I deem it necessary to speak about a very important issue,
which though related to our region has dimensions extending far beyond
it and which has influenced global policies for several decades. This
issue is the agonizing issue of Palestine. The summary of this matter is
that on the basis of a horrible Western plot and under the direction of
England in the 1940s, an independent country with a clear historical
identity called “Palestine” has been taken away from its people through
the use of weapons, killings and deception and has been given to a group
of people the majority of whom are immigrants from European countries.
This great usurpation – which at the outset was accompanied with
massacres of defenseless people in towns and villages and their
expulsion from their homes and homeland to bordering countries – has
continued for more
than six
decades with similar crimes and continues to this very day. This is one of the most important issues of the human community.
Political
and military leaders of the usurping Zionist regime have not avoided
any crimes during this time: from killing the people, destroying their
homes and farms and arresting and torturing men and women and even their
children, to humiliating and insulting that nation and trying to
destroy it in order to digest it in the haraam-eating stomach of the
Zionist regime, to attacking their refugee camps in Palestine itself and
in the neighboring countries where millions of refugees live. Such
names as Sabra and Shatila, Qana and Deir Yasin have been etched in the
history of our region with the blood of the oppressed Palestinian
people.
Even
now after 65 years the same kind of crimes marks the treatment of
Palestinians remaining in the occupied territories by the ferocious
Zionist wolves. They commit new crimes one after the other and create
new crises for the region. Hardly a day passes without reports of
murder, injury and arrests of the youth who stand up to defend their
homeland and their honor and protest against the destruction of their
farms and homes. The Zionist regime, which has carried out
assassinations and caused conflicts and crimes for decades by waging
disastrous wars, killing people, occupying Arab territories and
organizing state terror in the region and in the world, labels the
Palestinian people as “terrorists”, the people who have stood up to
fight for their rights. And the media networks which belong to Zionism
and many of the Western and mercenary media repeat
this great
lie in violation of ethical values and journalistic commitment, and the
political leaders who claim to defend human rights have closed their
eyes on all these crimes and support that criminal regime shamelessly
and boldly and assume the role of their advocates.
Our
standpoint is that Palestine belongs to the Palestinians and that
continuing its occupation is a great and intolerable injustice and a
major threat to global peace and security. All solutions suggested and
followed up by the Westerners and their affiliates for “resolving the
problem of Palestine” have been wrong and unsuccessful, and it will
remain so in the future. We have put forth a just and entirely
democratic solution. All the Palestinians – both the current citizens of
Palestine and those who have been forced to immigrate to other
countries but have preserved their Palestinian identity, including
Muslims, Christians and Jews – should take part in a carefully
supervised and confidence-building referendum and chose the political
system of their country, and all the Palestinians who have suffered from
years of exile should return to their
country and
take part in this referendum and then help draft a Constitution and
hold elections. Peace will then be established.
Now
I would like to give a benevolent piece of advice to American
politicians who always stood up to defend and support the Zionist
regime. So far, this regime has created countless problems for you. It
has presented a hateful image of you to the regional peoples, and it has
made you look like an accomplice in the crimes of the usurping
Zionists. The material and moral costs borne by the American government
and people on account of this are staggering, and if this continues, the
costs might become even heavier in the future. Think about the Islamic
Republic's proposal of a referendum and with a courageous decision,
rescue yourselves from the current impossible situation. Undoubtedly,
the people of the region and all free-thinkers across the world will
welcome this measure.
Honorable
guests, now I would like to return to my initial point. Global
conditions are sensitive and the world is passing through a crucial
historical juncture. It is anticipated that a new order shall be born.
The Non-Aligned Movement, which includes almost two-thirds of the world
community, can play a major role in shaping that future. The holding of
this major conference in Tehran is itself a significant event to be
taken into consideration. By pooling our resources and capacities, we
members of this movement can create a new historic and lasting role
towards rescuing the world from insecurity, war and hegemony.
This
goal can be achieved only through our comprehensive cooperation with
each other. There are among us quite a few countries that are very
wealthy and countries that enjoy international influence. It is
completely possible to find solutions for problems through economic and
media cooperation and through passing on experiences that help us
improve and make progress. We need to strengthen our determination. We
need to remain faithful to our goals. We should not fear the bullying
powers when they frown at us, nor should we become happy when they smile
at us. We should
consider the will of God and the laws of
creation as our
support. We should learn lessons from what happened to the communist
camp two decades ago and from the failure of the policies of so-called
“Western liberal democracy” at the present time, whose signs can be seen
by everybody in the streets of European countries and America and in
the insoluble economic problems of these countries. And finally, we
should consider the Islamic Awakening in the region and the fall of the
dictatorships in North Africa, which were dependent on America and were accomplices
to the Zionist regime, as a great opportunity. We can help improve the
“political productivity” of the Non-Aligned Movement in global
governance. We can prepare a historic document aimed to bring
about a
change in this governance and to provide for its administrative tools.
We can plan for effective economic cooperation and define paradigms for
cultural relationships among ourselves. Undoubtedly, establishing an
active and motivated secretariat for this organization will be a great
and significant help in achieving these goals.
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