Zarif: Palestine still ‘an issue of Islamic world’

Mr. Zarif is in Lebanon heading a delegation to the country as Iran’s first official visit after Lebanese political parties succeeded in election of the president. On Tuesday, he received a meeting of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance group members; “Palestine is still an important issue of Islamic world, and is a priority for Iran’s foreign policy, and Palestinian developments are closely watched by the government,” he told the meeting. “Zionist regime is the most dangerous threat to the global peace; the foster-child of colonialism, the regime is a nuclear power with 200 nuclear warhead; it had largely been unscathed thanks to the US vetoing of international resolutions in the UN for its atrocities it unleashed upon Palestinians.”

“However, the threat has not been received by Islamic countries with seriousness, with some even downplaying the threat, shifting the blame on other issues in the region,” Zarif emphasized. “For the Islamic Republic of Iran and the nation, no threat would be more dangerous and pernicious than Zionist regime, to which Takfirism and extremism stands only second in intensity.”

Zarif told the meeting that Takfirism had distorted the true image of Islam; “in any attempt to face these two enemies, Islamic countries are in a loss of unity; in Yemen and Syria, there has been a human disaster, where political solutions had been abandoned in favor of more devastating and violent means; we believe national dialogues in Syria and Yemen would provide solutions to crises, and foreign powers would only facilitate the process and should avoid fueling the hostilities,” he concluded.