Iran urges Asian states to fight terrorism collectively

Rasa - A senior Iranian official has urged influential countries in Asia to make joint efforts in the fight against terrorism.

News ID: 437388

Date: 27 April 2018 - 22:46

RNA - Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani made the comments in an interview with IRNA on Friday before leaving Russia’s Sochi, where he attended an international security conference and held talks with a number of senior participants.

He added that the US has always pursued hostile policies vis-à-vis independent countries including Iran and said, "US National Security Agency documents have foreseen measures to create insecurity and exert pressure on independent countries such as China, Russia and Iran."

The SNSC secretary emphasized that the United States seeks to transfer terrorism from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei late in January said the United States has been relocating the Daesh terrorist group from the Middle East to Afghanistan to rationalize its military presence in the region.

By transferring the Daesh terror group from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan, the US seeks “to justify the continuation of its presence in the region and to create security for the Zionist regime,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Shamkhani said China and certain Central Asian countries should help boost international security.

He noted that the participants at the Sochi conference held discussions about the spread of terrorism across the region and ways to counter it, the landmark nuclear agreement officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - signed between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015 - and extra-regional powers' plots to boost regional insecurity.

Iran believes that joint positive measures can be adopted to fight terrorism and all destabilizing factors in the region, the senior Iranian official pointed out.

In a meeting with Guo Shengkun, the secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, on Thursday, Shamkhani underlined the necessity for Iran, China and Russia to adopt a joint strategy to counter US attempts at harming the three countries.

The senior Iranian official pointed to ongoing efforts by the countries sponsoring Takfiri terrorism to relocate the remnants of such militant groups from the Middle East to Afghanistan, warning that the deployment of terrorist groups on Afghan soil will pose serious threats to the borders of Iran, China and Russia.

According to Press TV, in a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Nikolay Patrushev, in Sochi on Wednesday, Shamkhani said the illegitimate military presence of certain countries in Syria is meant to put the Takfiri terrorists, who have suffered defeat in the region, back on their feet.

“Through their illegitimate military presence in Syria, some countries have only further complicated the circumstances on the ground there, and are practically taking steps towards the reinforcement of the defeated front of Takfiri terrorism,” he said.

Shamkhani also told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday before leaving for Sochi that the Islamic Republic would punish Israel for the recent airstrikes on Syria that killed over a dozen people, including seven Iranian military advisors.

The punishment of the aggressor is certain but the Islamic Republic of Iran would decide on the time, place and way of giving a response to this "act of evil", he added.

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