TEHRAN, Iran — My first visit ever at Iran's Foreign Ministry gave me a real impression of the country I'm reporting from. It is a huge complex inherited from previous eras, with a concentrated ambience of royalty. As I walked through the corridors, the rooms on both sides of my path had plaques with the names of certain countries or regions around the world. These are the offices of the Iranian undersecretaries that take care of each part of the world.

The TV network I work for, Al Mayadeen, had an interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, marking his first appearance on Arab or international media since being appointed as head of his country's diplomacy.

The interview was mainly about messages to the world, including the United States, where Zarif himself lived around half his life as a university student and in Iran’s foreign service.

"There's a mutual lack of confidence," he said while answering a question about exchanging messages with President Barack Obama's administration, adding, "We are ready to engage with the United States in the process of confidence building. If they want our confidence they must trust us — we don't seek nuclear weapons and it's in their interest to accept Iran's peacful nuclear program."