Iran（イランの大統領選後の混乱について）

イランの大統領選はアフマディネジャド氏の圧勝で終わった。しかし手作業なのに５時間で2500万票が開票できたのか、また対立候補である改革派ムサビ氏の地元での開票結果など多くの疑問が残る。
その為に選挙のやり直しを求める改革派の大規模集会が３日連続で行われている。政府は投票の正当性の見直しはするが、再選挙はしないと明言している。
問題は、集会参加者への暴力や報道規制である。（外国の報道陣に街頭インタビューも禁止）
この事態を受けてオバマ大統領への質問が出た。（イタリアのベルルスコーニ首相との会談後の記者会見）
改革派ムサビ氏は米国との対話路線の方針であった為、米国はムサビ氏の当選を期待していた。
オバマ大統領は当然ながら慎重な言い回しで以下のように質問に答えた。
先ず明確にしておきたいことは、イランのリーダーを決めるのはイラン国民であり、イランの内政問題であり、米国はイランの独立性を尊重する立場からそこに介入する意思は無いということである。
しかしながら暴力が生じているのを報道で見るのは悲しいことであり、一般論として言論の自由と平和的な対話が行われることは世界中で尊重されるべき大切な価値であることは間違いない。
イラン政府は投票結果を見直すと言っており、それがどのような結果であろうとも国民が意見を述べる自由が守られることを期待してやまない。
アフマディネジャド氏の今までの言動にはアメリカと深く見解が異なる面がある。中東の安全保障においてイランが核軍事力を持って脅威を与えないことを願うものである。
何れにせよイランで暴力が生じていることに口をつぐむのは適切ではなく、イラン国民には全世界が注目しているということを伝えたい。
Q Mr. President, on Iran, does the disputed election results affect — there’s been violence in the street — in any way change your willingness to meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad without preconditions? And also, do you have anything to say, any message to send to people who are on the streets protesting, who believe their votes were stolen and who are being attacked violently?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football — or discussions with the United States.
Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process — free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent — all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they’re, rightfully, troubled.
My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can’t state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election. But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it’s important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.
Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions with Iran, I’ve always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad’s statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy — diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries — is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. Those are core interests not just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in general.
We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we’ll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days. And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.
And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.