President Rouhani Condoles Mandela’s Death
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani expressed his condolences on the death of South Africa’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.
Mandela died at the age of 95 at his Johannesburg home on Thursday night.
In a message to his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma on Friday, Hassan Rouhani offered his condolences to the African nation over the death of the highly revered leader, who was widely believed as South Africa’s moral compass.
President Rouhani paid tribute to Mandela as a moral giant and exemplary beacon for the world, and said, “Nelson Mandela held an undoubted belief in the freedom and equality of human beings not only in his country, South Africa, but also in the whole world.”
“His life was amazing for he knew how to live,” the Iranian president said of Mandela.
Mandela led South Africa's transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison for his political activities.
He had been receiving intensive medical care at home for a lung infection after spending three months in hospital.
Mandela served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was one of the world's most revered statesmen after preaching reconciliation despite being imprisoned for 27 years.
He had rarely been seen in public since officially retiring in 2004. He made his last public appearance in 2010, at the football World Cup in South Africa.
