I have spent six years in prison, the last six years. Even if I was outside the prison, how much actual space was there for an investigative journalist to do his work in Iran? But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.
We all know a lot of people who died in 9/11, the World Trade Center. A lot of money funding that mission is directly tied - from the 9/11 Commission, directly tied to Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas.
If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely... Our patience is not unlimited.
For decades, our differences with Iran meant that our governments almost never spoke to each other. Ultimately, that did not advance America's interests.
The bottom line is this - whereas Iran was steadily expanding its nuclear program, we have now cut off every single path that Iran could have used to build a bomb.
As you know, we don't have relationships with Iran. I mean, that's - ever since the late '70s, we have no contacts with them, and we've totally sanctioned them. In other words, there's no sanctions - you can't - we're out of sanctions.
We have a legal system, and this is not something that happens all the time. We have capital punishment. America has capital punishment. Iran has capital punishment. Iran hangs people and leaves their bodies hanging on cranes. Iran put to death more than a thousand people last year. I don't see EU reporting on it.
There's no way to resolve Syria without Iran being involved, given its financing of Assad and the fact that Hezbollah is probably the most effective fighting force that Assad can count on.
Iran has made vile comments, anti-Semitic comments, comments about the destruction of Israel. It is precisely for that reason that even before I became president, I said Iran could not have a nuclear weapon.
We did not treat the Americans badly. They left Iran in a relaxed mood. The embassy was active here after the revolution. We didn't have any problem with them. They started it.
Iran's Supreme Court has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons. President [Hassan] Rouhani has indicated Iran will never develop nuclear weapons. I've made clear that we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy in the context of Iran meeting its obligations.
Everything we've done has been designed to make sure that we address that number one priority. That's what the sanctions regime was all about. That's how we were able to mobilize the international community, including some folks that we are not particularly close to, to abide by these sanctions. That's how these crippling sanctions came about, was because we [USA] were able to gain global consensus that Iran having a nuclear weapon would be a problem for everybody.