Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Greening of Diplomatic Relations between Iran and Italy


I met with Emma Bonino, the Italian Foreign Minister in Tehran on Saturday.She came to the DOE only minutes affter arriving at Mehrabad Airport . Nineteen journalists and members of the press accompanied her in this important visit to Iran. The first part of our talks focused on bilateral relations and changes that are anticipated to occur after the election of Dr.Rouhani and the new round of 5+1 talks on the nuclear issue. Ms. Bonino stressed upon her government's resolve to enhance relations with Iran despite the pressures from radicals and "nervous people" as she put it. We also spoke about how important this trend is for global peace and security. The adoption of the WAVE Resoution in the UNGA is a significant milestone after the Dialogue Among Civilization Resolution of 2001, I noted. Then, I mentioned the important policies we pursue in Iran to improve the quality of life and how sanctions have impeded that trend and now how bilateral relations could enable Iran to move ahead in this area. Wetland management including Lake Urumieh, Hamoon International Wetland and others, the Dust/Haze phenomena and green technologies were all discussed in the meeting. We decided to finalize an MOU on these matters as soon as possible. I told her the first phase of your visit consisted of the greening of bilateral relations between Iran and Italy, which I hope will benefit both nations as well as the global environment. 
We then took her to visit our Biodiversity Museum in the Pardisan Park . A brief news conference concluded the 1/30 hour visit.  I also gave her my book "Natural Peace", which is a compilation of speeches I had in my first term as Vice President.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Warsaw and Geneva ,two Venues for Global Peace


I attended the COP19 conference on climate change in Warsaw last week. The global community has sensed an urgency in the matter, but little action has been taken to reverse the devastating trend of the warming of the earth's atmosphere and the ensuing extreme weather events , drought, rising sea levels and immense social and economic losses incurred upon societies. In Warsaw, global powers that are responsible for the major part of the green house gases produced during the industrial era were not ready to accept their historical responsibilities and developing countries, many who are still grappling with abject poverty in their societies, were not ready to undergo quotas to reduce their GGHs drastically, when the major part of the industrialized world including the US never acceeded to the Kyoto protocol. The EU initially pushed to impose their version on the rest of the world but they faced a strong group of like minded developing countries who threatened to leave the conference if consensus was not achieved based on common understanding. In the end, a neogiated text was agreed upon in the final moments, to save the negotiation process. During my stay in Warsaw, I was invited to speak about the role of women in promoting global peace at the European Academy of Diplomacy, I also delivered my country speech at the opening of the high level session on the first day. A press conference with Polish journalists, a speech at PISM a Polish peace research institute on the Internal and External Evolution of https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1429fa1502b42547&attid=0.1&disp=attd&safe=1&zw and a long working dinner with the Polish foreign minister were also on my agenda. Since the sensitive 5+1 negotiations with Iran were underway then in Geneva, they overshadowed our talks in Warsaw. I had the chnace to speak with the President of Poland at his reception and along with the Iranian delegation we had a lengthly meeting Mr.Ban Ki Moon, the UNSG. In that meeting, I told him I tweeted last night : Planet earth pleads us tonight: Give the world a chance for peace in Geneva , give the global environment a chance in Warsaw. He liked the tweet but sarcastically also noted that it was similar to what he had said a few weeks ago : Give diplomacy a chance in Syria! The success of the 5+1 and Iran negotiations in Geneva was a great achievement for peace and multilateralism, as opposed to the violence and conflict prone policies in today's world. This success proves that even the most difficult and apparently insurmountable obstacles can be overcome with patience and dialogue.https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1429fa1502b42547&attid=0.1&disp=attd&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P-en6RqDALqBdRUe3mK1csg&sadet=1385872288279&sads=TvPHgoxBnrX1FI_wImmXINOyNOQ