We made a lot of mistakes in our relationship with Washington!

The Iranian presidential candidate, former vice president of the Iranian parliament, Ali Motahari, said in an election speech he gave on Saturday that it is in his country’s interest to establish normal relations with the United States, which Tehran considers its greatest enemy. .

Motahari, 63, said: “We could have a strong lobby in the US Congress if our relations were normalized.”

He continued: “The principle for some at home is to stand up to the United States until its destruction … We made many mistakes in our relationship with Washington … If I became president of the republic, it would improve relations with the United States.”

It is noteworthy that Motahari and all those who declare their intention to run need the approval of the Council of Guardians to be able to contest the presidential race in June 2021, with the end of the term of the current president, Hassan Rouhani.

Motahari’s statements come at a time when Iran is subject to painful economic sanctions by the United States, which imposed these measures during the era of its former president, Donald Trump, after announcing its withdrawal from the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, so Tehran would then respond by reducing its obligations under the deal.

The rest of the parties to the agreement are working on organizing a negotiation process between Iran and the United States to save the agreement, but they disagree on who should take the first step in this direction.

Relations between the two countries have also witnessed military tensions for years, reaching their climax in January 2020 when the United States assassinated the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s “Quds Force”, Major General Qassem Soleimani, who took the prominent military leaders of their country, who responded by cutting off the US base of Ain Al-Assad. in Iraq.

The United States is considered in the official Iranian creed “the greatest enemy”, and the two sides exchange strong accusations of interfering in the affairs of other countries, sowing chaos and supporting terrorism.