TEHRAN: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that the chaos unleashed on the US Capitol by US counterpart Donald Trump’s supporters exposed the fragility of Western democracy.
“What we saw in the United States yesterday (Wednesday) evening and today shows above all how fragile and vulnerable Western democracy is,” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast by state television.
“We saw that unfortunately the ground is fertile for populism, despite the advances in science and industry.
“A populist has arrived and he has led his country to disaster over these past four years.
“I hope the whole world and the next occupants of the White House will learn from it.”
Rouhani said he hoped for a change of direction from the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden.
He urged the new administration “to make up (for the past) and restore the country to a position worthy of the American nation, because the American nation is a great nation.”
“May they return to reason, legality and their obligations. It’s for their own benefit and the good of the world,” he said.
Despite routine references to the United States as the “Great Satan” in official rhetoric, it is not the first time that an Iranian president has called America a “great nation.”
Rouhani, a relative moderate in Iranian politics, presided over negotiations for a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement with major powers that Trump abandoned in 2018.
He has staked his reputation on a diplomatic opening to the incoming Biden administration to try to rescue the deal.
Iran’s Rouhani says Western democracy ‘fragile, vulnerable’
https://arab.news/p36zm
Iran’s Rouhani says Western democracy ‘fragile, vulnerable’
- Rouhani said he hoped for a change of direction from the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
