Iran Asks Saudi Arabia to Help End Conflicts

Date: 18 January 2017 - 21:06

News ID: ۳۵۷۵۸

DAVOS, Switzerland (Dispatches) -- Iran and Saudi Arabia should be able to work together to help end conflicts in Syria and Yemen, after successfully cooperating over Lebanon last year, Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday.
"I do not see any reason why Iran and Saudi Arabia should have hostile policies towards each other. We can in fact work together to put an end to miserable conditions of the people in Syria and Yemen and Bahrain and elsewhere in the region," Muhammad Javad Zarif told the World Economic Forum.
Saudi Arabia and Iran support opposite sides in regional conflicts in Syria and Yemen and regularly accuse each other of fomenting unrest in the Middle East.
"Iran and Saudi Arabia were able to actually stop impeding the process of the presidential election in Lebanon. We have a success story," Zarif said.
Iran has in the past stated that it does not want to interfere in the internal issues of other countries, especially the presidency issue in Lebanon.
Zarif's statements come despite continuous remarks by Lebanese factions that the election of President Michel Aoun was a decision made in Lebanon.
Aoun's election has ended almost three years of vacuum in the country's top Christian post, which has much crippled the Cabinet and the Parliament.
Saudi Arabia and Iran back different sides in Lebanon, with Riyadh backing the so-called March 14 coalition, while Tehran backing Hezbollah and its allies.
Zarif said Riyadh needs to see the realities on the ground before relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia could go back to normal.
He said Iran has a lot of grievances, including the loss of over 460 Iranian pilgrims in a tragic crush during the Hajj rituals in September 2015, which he said was caused by "negligence” and Saudi officials' anti-Iran rhetoric.
"We have seen a lot of rhetoric from Saudi Arabia… interesting comments from my colleague, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, which considered Iran responsible for Daesh, which is the joke of the century,” Zarif said, adding that Riyadh needed to see the realities on the ground and the fundamental reasons behind the current problem gripping the region instead of pointing the finger of blame at others.
The top Iranian diplomat said that "nobody can derive any benefits even temporary benefits from supporting terrorism and sectarianism.”
"Once we understand that we cannot contain terrorism in one part of our region, and that terrorism and extremism are like contagious diseases that will spread throughout the region, throughout the world before we know it -- and it is happening right now -- then Iran and Saudi Arabia can start to think about different modus operandi for their relations,” Zarif said.
Top security official Ali Larijani also said Iran does not seek the fall of Saudi Arabia or its royal family, rather it seeks to protect it for fear of what might replace it.
"The fall of the House of Saud would not mean that the alternative would be any better,” Shamkhani said.
Shamkhani is the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council which oversees international coordination on the Syrian war, and made his comments in an interview with Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly Journal.
"Rather, it is very likely that it would lead to divisions within Saudi Arabia and to the dominance of the debased extremist ideology of Daesh over large parts of Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Shamkhani, who was Iran's defense minsiter from 1997 to 2005, said that his country "has always confronted the growth of extremism and defended the territorial integrity of countries in the region because the division of states would lead to terrorist ideology dominating in Muslim countries, which conflicts with the strategic interests of the Islamic world.”
Regarding Saudi’s role in the region, he said: "Unfortunately, we see that the regional policies of Saudi Arabia’s rulers in Syria and Yemen have helped terrorist groups and strengthened them.”
His comments were echoed by Syria's foreign minister in a TV interview on Wednesday, who said Persian Gulf states could have a role in talks on the country's future if they ceased support for rebel groups in Syria.
"Once Qatar and Saudi Arabia halt their support for terrorism we will discuss the matter of their participation in the talks," Deputy Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad was quoted as saying by the Lebanon-based TV station Al-Mayadeen.
Iranian officials said on Wednesday they were strongly opposed to the United States joining Syrian peace talks in Kazakhstan next week, local media reported.
"We are hostile to their presence and we have not invited them," Zarif said.
That goes against the position of the other two organizers of the talks - Russia and Turkey - which have said the new U.S. administration of Donald Trump should be represented in Astana on Monday.
Shamkhani also confirmed on Wednesday that Iran had refused to invite the U.S.
"There is no reason for the United States to participate in the organising of political initiatives in the Syrian crisis and it is out of the question that they should have a role in the Astana negotiations," he said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
In his address to the WEF, Zarif touched on the situation in Syria, and lauded a cessation of hostilities that has been holding in the Arab country since last month.
He said the upcoming talks on Syria in the Kazakh city of Astana would be aimed at expanding the ceasefire agreement in the conflict-hit country.
"What we need to do at the international level is to help the Syrians reach the stage of starting to talk to each other, and I believe the first step has been taken by Iran, Russia and Turkey in bringing about a cessation of hostilities” that has been holding for "over a month and that is the best record that is available in the past five… years of the Syrian conflict.”
"We hope that in Astana, this can be expanded, we hope that the ceasefire will incorporate all of Syria,” he added.
Zarif also warned against jumping to any conclusions before the start of the negotiations in Astana.
"We should not try to prejudge the outcome of political negotiations before we even start political negotiations. What is important for everybody is to recognize there is no military solution in Syria,” he said, expressing hope that all the parties that signed the Syria ceasefire agreement "will come to Astana with a view to ending hostilities for a longer term and also starting a political process.”
Zarif said the Astana talks would discuss the principles of a peace process based on Syria’s unity and territorial integrity as well as an inclusive government, but he stressed that only the Syrians must determine the future fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.