Senior Iranian official:

US exit from region will accelerate Afghan peace process

A senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the process of resorting peace and stability to Afghanistan will pick up steam without the intervention of invading countries, especially the United States.

News ID: 448711

Date: 29 January 2020 - 11:17

In a meeting with UN special representative for Afghanistan Tadamichi Yamamoto in Tehran on Tuesday, Ali Akbar Velayati said the main problem facing the South Asian state is the presence of aggressors, particularly the US, there.

“If the Americans leave Afghanistan, the country’s civilized and politically-informed people will be able to determine their own fate free from their intervention,” Velayati said.

He pointed to a recent presidential election in Afghanistan and stressed the importance of strengthening unity in the ranks of the Afghan nation.

The senior Iranian official expressed hope that the new Afghan government would start working at the earliest.

“Iran has always supported Afghanistan and the establishment of peace and stability in this country, and measures towards that goal should undoubtedly be taken with the guidance of this country’s government and based on its nation’s will,” he added.

He also called on the United Nations to play a more effective role in Afghanistan given the US conspiracies against the country and the entire region.

Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) said on December 23 that there is a “strong possibility” that the presidential election would go to a second round as it starts reviewing thousands of complaints.

The announcement came a day after delayed preliminary results from the September 28 election showed that Afghanistan’s incumbent President Ashraf Ghani has won the country's presidential election with a slim majority.

The UN envoy, for his part, hailed Iran's efforts and support for the Afghan people and government as well as its positive role in resolving the country's problems.

Given Iran’s effective role in the region, he called for the Islamic Republic's further involvement in the Afghan peace process and cooperation with the United Nations.

Addressing the Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia Countries in the Turkish port city of Istanbul in December, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, saying history shows that foreign presence in the region has only “provided a recruiting ground for extremists.”

Zarif said, “There is no military solution in Afghanistan. The presence of foreign forces has never brought stability in our region and has historically provided a recruiting ground for extremists.”

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