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.
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.
Iran has been a neighbor for millenia, and will continue to be a neighbor for millenia. We have no issue with seeking to develop the best terms we can with Iran.
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.
Now that Iran's actions have been verified, it can begin to receive relief from certain nuclear sanctions and gain access to its own money that had been frozen.
The Gulf States are extraordinarily suspicious of Iran for good reason. They view Iran as meddling in their affairs. They have seen Iran level asymmetric attacks against their facilities or their interests.
Like twentieth-century Iran, the remnant of the Persian Empire, Ethiopia under Haile Selassie attempted to preserve the absolutist state throught an accommodation with modernizing forces in his own terms without completely subduing traditionalists. This was not a strategy of Haile Selassie's own choosing. Instead, he was overtaken by events and forced to deal with contradictions that were from the very beginning too formidable to be managed in the long term.
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.
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.
When al-Qaeda was on the run from Afghanistan crossing through Iran, some were arrested and they are imprisoned. Some of them are charged with some actions in Iran.
We [USA] don't have diplomatic leverage to eliminate every vestige of a peaceful nuclear program in Iran. What we do have the leverage to do is to make sure that they don't have a weapon.
What we've seen at least since 1979 is Iran making constant, calculated decisions that allow it to preserve the regime, to expand their influence where they can, to be opportunistic, to create what they view as hedges against potential Israeli attack in the form of Hezbollah and other proxies in the region.
For decades, our differences with Iran meant that our governments almost never spoke to each other. Ultimately, that did not advance America's interests.