Speech [Mission, duties, and role of the Ministry of Foreign affairs]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

First, I would like to thank the officials for having come here to meet with me and to express the pains of former times. You know that the Foreign Ministry is the only ministry, which can by becoming good and Islamic reveal its Islamic identity abroad and its impact is greater than all the ministries. Conversely, the damages that are inflicted to our country by the foreign embassies here, and our own embassies abroad and by the foreign ministries have perhaps not been inflicted by others. This is because the Foreign Ministry has relations with the whole world, with various thinking, with various ideas and various plans. However, the job of the Foreign Ministry is a difficult one, yet sensitive and it is necessary that it reforms rightly.

I know that these problems who have created for us- in every aspect of its creation- whether in the Foreign Ministry, whether in the rest of the ministries and whether in all the government and national bodies and so forth requires a lot of time to reform. But, when it is decided to be reformed meaning the government and all the ministries have determined that we must be ourselves; that we must not be dependent on others; that we ourselves must safeguard our reputation; if this objective is felt and it moves in this direction, then God willing it shall lead to reforms of all things. However, all the ministries and other places under government jurisdiction or the nation itself, if all of them have the common objective that we must have relations with those foreign countries that do not want to swallow us. Whereas there is not much need to have relations with those that want to exploit having relations in order to make us dependent on them. One must work very cautiously. Should you enter this straight path, which is the path of Islam, then until the end of your lives, all those that have recited their mandatory prayers several times everyday and have implored" Guide us on the Straight Path" «1» shall be rightly guided. When he is guided, he shall be guided until the end of his life. The important thing is that a person enters that path that he must traverse- be the spiritual journey or material journey that is also spiritual in one context. This means that after a government has become Islamic, it is wholly based on spirituality. It is not that its government does not have spirituality while for example; its congregation prayer leaders have spirituality. When the people feel that they want to become good humans; they want to be reformed; that they wish to reform themselves; they want their government to be a Divine government; that their legislative assembly should be likewise; similar for the rest of their things; when the feeling becomes such then it is all spirituality- except by different routes.

The same job that you are doing in the Foreign Ministry and the ambassadors are doing abroad; if the path is the straight Islamic path then it is itself" journey towards God". It is not necessary that a person sits in a corner of a room and says that he wishes to undertake the" journey towards God". Not at all," journey to God" is in the same way that the Prophets and especially the Prophet of Islam and those that were related to him have undertaken. At the same time that they launched a battle, they would kill humans and be killed, they ruled; they had everything- all of the things were" journey towards God". It was not such that on the day when the Commander of the Faithful was busily engaged in battle it was not" journey towards God" while the day he was engaged in reciting prayers, it was so. No, both of them were" journey towards God". Thus, the Prophet states that," One blow of the sword of `Ali (`a) in the Battle of Khandaq is superior to the worship of all the Jinn and Mankind." «2» This is because it is a" journey towards God".

When we decide to fight the deviant elements- not a war with guns- when we want to pull the spiritual aspects into materiality; also pull materiality towards spirituality, a person shall ultimately succeed in this even though the task is difficult yet not impossible. It is an issue, in which a person succeeds; he succeeds when he takes action. You see in this same issue of the victory of the nation over the corrupt ex-regime. Well, initially, no one even imagined that a nation that was bereft of anything could confront a government that possessed everything and was also backed by all the governments. Even the thought of such an objective was difficult for any person who was knowledgeable of the issues. Thus, those in whom this thinking prevailed would always counsel that it must not be undertaken. However, you saw that when the nation decided to do something, when it entered the arena on this basis, it should reach its conclusion. To reach it to its conclusion was a great feat, which we cannot right now comprehend the magnitude of what the nation has accomplished.

One of the writers «3» who have authored many writings sent a message through one of the personalities saying that we ourselves could not comprehend what we had done. He was right, because what has occurred in Iran was something that even we also could not understand what it was and what was going to take place. Every step that we took; that you took, God revealed the way to another step. Generally speaking all the steps was in a manner that as if the Blessed and Almighty God were holding a lamp in front that was lighting up the darkness. Every step that you take, you move and He never allowed this nation to weaken in its resolution. It sacrificed lives; every crime was committed against it but it did not retreat. This implies that it had discovered its path. When the straight path is found, it is easy to tread it. The main thing is that at the outset, these deviant elements cause confusion in the paths one pulling in this direction and the other in the other direction," the path of those whom Thy wrath is upon." «4» They pull from one direction while these pull in another direction. When it becomes such; when the path of a person is changed he then traverses, that path to its conclusion meaning that he goes astray until the end. One must find the path. If the path is discovered, a person traverses it and thank God, now Iran has discovered its path. I hope that every day it also becomes more firm and moves more resolutely.

Now, the embassies have become your own and there is no ruler to pressurize you to do this and that, you must act on your own. The embassies must be such embassies that move on the straight path of humanity. The straight path of humanity is also not that we recite the mandatory prayers- we must recite the prayers of course but the embassies must be free of domination of outsiders; no person should have any influence upon it except the government itself; except the Foreign Ministry itself. There should be one path and not that it should be pulled in this direction and that one such was in former times and it would be pulled and carried to this side or be carried to that side. This was our problem such that the dependencies were to the extent that it was a difficult task to remove these dependencies and to free the shackles from around the necks. However, thank God, until now our nation and our government have been successful and today also it must be the same. This means that at every step you must think whether the step, which we are taking, will cause us to become dependent, are the devils making us dependent or no it is a step towards freedom and it is we ourselves that want to do this work?

Whatever the embassies do, they must think beforehand that what they want to do take us closer to creating dependence or free us from dependence and take us closer to independence. Likewise, in the rest of the places. If we think of doing our work on our own; that the country is of our own; that we must till the soil ourselves; manage its offices for instance, on our own; that we must do the labor work on our own; when this feeling strengthens in a person, he will pursue this path. To find the path is difficult but after it is found, it is easy to traverse. A person who is lost in the wilderness, he will continually change from this path to that path and perhaps after ten years also he will not be able to reach the destination. However, when he finds the path that would lead him to the destination, it would then be easy for him to traverse it. A person in the wilderness, moves from one direction and sees that it leads him nowhere; then he goes from another direction and sees that it also does not lead anywhere until he reaches the asphalted road. When he reaches the asphalted road, he has the way and he moves along it and reaches his destination.

At present, we are also in this manner that, thank God, we have found the path and this is one of the biggest successes for us and it is easy to traverse it but it requires effort. All must strive and join hands; all the people with the government, with the nation, must together unite and strive to do the job on our own and that we want to become self-sufficient through our own efforts. Neither should we import wheat from abroad for instance and nor other food items and things that we need; nor import clothing; nor food and nor other essential items we need in the war and in other places.

If this feeling exists, then some of them will be achieved in the long-term and some in the near future. It can be done soon, for instance, if the clothing is changed and it is not what they want us to wear; or, for instance, the food should not be what the aristocrats eat. This is easy; it can be changed quickly. Of course, regarding the weapons of war and such things, it is a complicated issue and complex and it can be accomplished in the long-term. Nevertheless, those who are knowledgeable in these fields have also achieved many successes. Yesterday, when the Minister of Defense had come here, he mentioned some of the accomplishments and the persons who had made those achievements possible, which made me truly happy.

I hope that all of you are successful and prosper and work for yourselves; work for the sake of God. It can be done. When it is decided that you want to free your Islamic country from the subjugation of foreigners- this is an Islamic issue; a moral issue; a spiritual issue- then spirituality shall be born within you. I hope that this spirituality develops and takes us to the end so that we reach to God, God willing.

May God's peace and mercy be upon you.