Zarif: Takfiri Groups in Possession of chemical Arms Threatening Region

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned against the threat posed to the region by extremist and Takfiri groups armed with chemical weapons.

“There is ample intelligence that Takfiri groups are in possession of chemical arms,” Zarif said in a meeting with Head of the Iraqi National Alliance Ibrahim al-Jafari on Sunday.

 “Extremists and Takfiris are a threat to the whole region,” the Iranian foreign minister added.

Referring to the war rhetoric against Syria, Zarif said, “We cannot accept that a group, who was indifferent to the use of chemical weapons in Iran and Iraq today, considers itself responsible for determining who has used chemical weapons.”

Al-Jafari, for his part, said war threats against Syria come as no international organization has yet confirmed who used chemical weapons, adding, “We condemn the use of chemical weapons by anyone, but Syria must not be attacked as longs as the perpetrators behind the gas attack are not identified.”

He said Iran and Iraq should work together closely and put forward a joint plan to prevent war in Syria.

On August 21, the foreign-backed armed groups in Syria and the “opposition” claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus. The Syrian government categorically rejected the claims as a false flag operation intended to trigger a foreign military intervention.

The US and several other Western countries immediately picked up the accusations against Damascus and used it as pretext to back up their war threats against the country..

One of the major premises of the US allegations against the Syrian government has been that the opposition does not possess chemical weapons. This is while a UN investigator said in May that there was strong evidence that the armed groups had indeed used sarin in an earlier incident. An independent Russian inquiry also arrived at a similar conclusion.

The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have been voicing strong opposition to the US plan for war.

H. Mustafa