Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said despite strong pressure from the US, Tehran is determined to maintain its ties with Syria.
“Washington has been seeking to isolate the countries in the region over the past 30 years. It has especially sought to isolate Iran from Syria, but that is a failed policy,” press tv quoted Mottaki as saying in a press conference in Paris on Wednesday.
Regarding the issue of Golan Heights, Mottaki stressed that the talks between Syria and Israel on returning the Golan Heights to Damascus will in no way undermine Iran-Syria ties.
Syria has every right to demand the unconditioned return of Golan Heights, occupied by the Zionist regime, the Iranian official underlined.
The Israeli regime has urged Syria to distance itself from Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah as a precondition for direct talks on the return of the Golan Heights, occupied during the 1967 Six-Day war.
Syria, however, has rejected the request so far, saying it is like Damascus urging Tel Aviv to relinquish ties with Washington.
Commenting on Iran’s nuclear program, Mottaki said Tehran adheres to international laws and is working within the framework of its commitments and will not forgo its inalienable nuclear right.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
After Iran answered IAEA’s outstanding questions about the history of its past nuclear activities, Tehran said that it will only negotiate with the UN nuclear watchdog from then on. The Islamic Republic has also repeatedly stressed that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA’s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
Yet, the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
