Iran vigilant about Turkey-NATO plans

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says despite Turkey being a close friend of Iran, Tehran must be careful regarding Ankara’s plan to host a NATO missile system on its soil.

“Turkey is one of our brothers and close friends, but when enemies deploy a missile shield there and admit that this (deployment) is a measure against Iran, caution is necessary,” the Iranian president told a group of Kuwaiti media managers in Tehran on Thursday.

“Iran has not taken positions against any party aside from the Zionist regime [of Israel] and has declared since the victory of the Islamic Revolution that it wants to establish brotherly ties with all regional countries,” Ahmadinejad added.

On September 2, Turkish Foreign Ministry announced Ankara’s plans to host NATO’s missile-detecting system in the country while declaring that it would suspend all military ties with Israel and expel the Israeli envoy from the country over Tel Aviv’s refusal to apologize for last year’s deadly attack on a Gaza-bound Turkish-flagged flotilla.

“Iran is worried about its brothers in the region and when it opposes foreign presence and intervention in the region it is because foreign countries have no other means to advance their interests than creating disputes and rifts between brothers and friendly countries,” the Iranian president added.

He said that “Everybody knows that Americans lack the power to overcome Iran; [George W.] Bush dreamed of dealing [even a] small blow to Iran.”

Ahmadinejad went on to question NATO and US interventions in Afghanistan and Libya and criticized the ongoing bombardment of Libyan cities by the military alliance, which has continued even after the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

“It is because the more Libyan people are killed and the infrastructure of the country is destroyed, [the more] this is to the advantage of crisis-hit Western economies,” he explained.

The Iranian president stressed the importance of friendly and brotherly relations between regional counties and said that “regional problems must only be solved through the efforts of regional countries.”