Zarif: West, US Unable to Curb Terrorism

TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad JavadZarif strongly criticized the West, specially the US, for supporting terrorism in different parts of the world.

“The US and the western countries are unable to resolve the issue of terrorism by continuing their previous policies,” Zarif said during a meeting with his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo in New York.

He noted that the US cannot fight terrorists.

The Iranian foreign minister pointed to the US dual-track policy in dealing with terrorism in Syria and Iraq, and said, “The Americans did not take any effective measure against four months of savagery of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists in Iraq like halting their direct and indirect aid to the them.”

The Spanish minister, for his part, voiced Madrid’s readiness to negotiate with regional courtiers, Iran in particular, to seek a proper solution to the crises in Syria and Iraq.

Garcia-Margallo also invited his Iranian counterpart to pay an official visit to Spain in the near future.

Anti-ISIL coalition striving to divert attention from US support for terrorism, says Kosari

On the other hand, a senior Iranian legislator lashed out at the West, specially the US, for creating and supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and said the US-led anti-ISIL coalition is aimed at distracting the world people’s attention from their support for the Takfiri terrorist group.

“The US attempt to form this coalition is because the world public opinion knows that the US has supported the ISIL; hence they (the West) want to lessen the load of their crimes and they pretend that they are forming a coalition to demolish the ISIL,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission EsmayeelKosari told reporters on Friday.

He reiterated that if the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia halt their supports for the ISIL and they do not provide financial support for the terrorist group, there will be no ISIL any more.

The prominent lawmaker pointed to the requests by many western countries from Iran to join the US-led anti-ISIL coalition and Tehran’s rejection, and said, “Iran does not cooperate with the US-led anti-ISIL coalition because the ISIL is a protégé of the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia.”

NATO heads of state convened in the Welsh city of Newport on September 4-5 and US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told foreign and defense ministers participating in the NATO summit that the US was forming a broad international coalition against ISIL.

Ministers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark met in Wales to hammer out a strategy for battling ISIL, but the policy was questioned by many regional officials and political leaders.

After the so-called US-led coalition against the ISIL declared its creation, Iran lashed out at the western states for pursuing a double-standard policy towards campaign against terrorism in various countries.

Iran was the first country that warned against the threats posed by the Takfiri terrorists to the region and has taken measures to counter this phenomenon before any country.

FNA

R.S