Rafsanjani Meets Syrian FM

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran’s Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani met with visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem here on Tuesday.

During the meeting, Rafsanjani termed significant the constructive cooperation by regional countries, specially the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria, in resolving regional problems, the issue of Iraq in particular.

He further viewed continued deployment of occupying troops as the root cause of the ongoing insecurities in Iraq, and assured that occupiers of Iraq would certainly fail in attaining their goals, such as sowing discord between Muslim Shiites and Sunnites.

The official also stressed that cooperation between Iran and Syria plays a crucially important role in increasing affinity among Islamic groups and disclosing enemy plots in the region.

He called for increased vigilance on the part of Muslim states to defuse the plots hatched by enemies for sowing discord among the regional Muslim countries.

The Expediency Council chairman also termed mild and rational movement of the Muslims and cooperation among different faiths as crucial determinants of Muslims’ unity and integrity, and warned, “Extremist movements by any political and religious group in the region would damage and undermine Muslims and serve the interests of the enemies.”

Noting the issues of Lebanon and Palestine, he described the victory of the Islamic resistance as an appropriate paradigm for encountering enemies and foiling enemy goals, and said, “Victory of the Lebanese people against aggressors resulted from their resolve to move in compliance with the Islamic teachings and their decision to refrain from surrender.”

For his part, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem stressed the importance of his country’s friendly ties with Iran in the restoration of regional peace and stability, and said that the United States is a major obstacle impeding reinvigoration of Iran and Syria’s ties with Iraq.

He said Syria seeks to help Iraq reach stability, freedom, integrity and restore its Arab and Islamic identity.

Reminding that quadrilateral cooperation between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon can defuse enemies’ plots in the region, Mualem underlined that efforts made by the Zionist regime of Israel and the United States to spark discord in the region are doomed to failure.

“They seek to sow discord in a bid to make regional Muslim nations forget their main enemy in the region, which is the Zionist regime,” he stressed, and further called for enhanced efforts to inform Muslim nations of the said conspiracy and help them realize the depth of the enemy’s plots.