Speaking on Wednesday at the inauguration ceremony of the 11th term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Dr Hassan Rouhani said, "All thoughts must be directed towards national interests, national security, national interests and national identity, and the public interests must be preferred over partisan, factional and constituency interests”.
Emphasising that the Islamic Consultative Assembly is the home of the nation, the President said, "Our basis for cooperation is the framework that the constitution has drawn and we believe that the parliament and each of its member are responsible towards the entire Iranian people".
Dr Rouhani added, "Preferring national interests over partisan and factional interests will be the basis for the cooperation of the government and parliament".
Parts of President Hassan Rouhani’s speech is as follows:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
I would like to offer my congratulations to all the esteemed representatives and the great Iranian nation on the beginning of the 11th Majlis.
Parliament and Majlis around the world are important symbols of democracy, and in Islamic Iran, the Islamic Consultative Assembly is a symbol of Islamic and religious democracy.
In the Islamic Consultative Assembly, from the beginning, great people have sit on these seats and performed their duties. From martyr Ayatollah Modarres to the Supreme Leader, the late Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and great martyrs like Raja'i, Bahonar and Chamran sat in the same seats in the first parliament and performed important legislative duties.
The term of office of the government and the Majlis is four years and short, but with cooperation we can leave a lasting memory for decades and even centuries for the people.
Different parliaments have come and gone, governments have come and gone, but you can see that the country's civil law is the strongest law for decades and more than a century, which is still an honour for Iran and the Iranian legislature.
The government and the parliament can cooperate in many areas, but the best cooperation is a good bill from the government and review and approval by the Islamic Consultative Assembly. God willing, I hope we can work together in the remaining year of this government and the beginning of this parliament.
Our basis for cooperation is the framework that the constitution has drawn and we believe that the parliament and each of its member are responsible towards the entire Iranian people.
All thoughts must be directed towards national interests, national security, national interests and national identity, and the public interests must be preferred over partisan, factional and constituency interests.
Undoubtedly, the parliament is neither the parliament of constituencies, nor the parliament of ethnic groups, nor the parliament of factions, nor the parliament of difference. The Islamic Consultative Assembly is the home of the nation and belongs to the Iranian nation.
Preferring national interests over partisan and factional interests will be the basis for the cooperation of the government and parliament.
Here, in a very brief and concise manner, I would like to talk to the esteemed members of the 11th Majlis that the 11th and 12th Governments are divided into two periods, 5 years and 3 years. In the first five years, the basis of government’s work was progress, and thank God, in all areas in the early years, we saw both openings in important political, social, economic and cultural affairs, and progress.
The fact that Iran is on the list of successful countries in the fight against the dangerous coronavirus is because of the strengthened healthcare foundations in the 11th government.
The country's medical capability, from hospital beds to equipment, has doubled compared to that of Iran's history before 2013, and it is a great honour for the Iranian nation and authorities.
In addition, the knowledge-based companies in the 11th and 12th governments witnessed a great and fundamental change. Today, the number of knowledge-based companies has grown from 52 to 5,000 knowledge-based companies. The income of knowledge-based companies in 2019 was 12 trillion tomans.
In the field of science, knowledge and technology, we rose from the 21st to the 16th, and in the field of innovation, we rose from the 131st to the 61st.
Because of the country's opening and development strategy, we have reached 110 million litres per day in the field of petrol production from 52 million litres per day, and now the daily production of gas is about 1 billion cubic meters.
In the military field, our rank rose to the 14th form the 22nd in the world. We have seen great transformation in various areas of military power over these years; we have witnessed a huge transformation in all areas of infrastructure.
In the field of motorways, we have increased to 28,000 km from the previous 14,000 km; which means twice as much as the country had before the 11th Government’s term of office.
At the end of this first term, we saw figures that we had hoped for from day one of the government. The country's economic growth in 2016 was the highest in the world. Iran's economic growth in 2016 was 12.5 and the largest growth in the world, and we were able to reach single-digit inflation, 9 percent and even 7 percent in inflation.
In the field of non-oil exports, despite conditions that are becoming harder every day, our non-oil exports have found a positive balance with non-oil imports for several consecutive years, and we witnessed the creation of 970,000 new jobs in 2017.
During this period, that is, during the period of opening and progress in the first 5 years, we reached this acceptable point with the help of the parliament and other forces with the guidance of the Supreme Leader.
As the National Task Force for Fighting Coronavirus tasked the government with preparing for the new wave of disease in autumn, we have prepared all the necessary facilities for the time when we are likely to encounter a new wave, and we have prepared the necessary reserves in this regard.
So in fighting coronavirus and the US economic war and their terrorist acts, which are both economic terrorism and more recently medical terrorism, we can fight their sanctions and incitement and this disease together through cooperation and synergy.