Iran’s Larijani: Western policies to fail

Iranian Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says the policies of the West in the region will not succeed in fomenting discord between Muslim nations.

“The foreign power’s efforts to fan the flames of discord and division within the Muslim world will not achieve anything; the ultimate success will be of the Muslim nations,” Larijani said on Saturday.

Speaking during a meeting with the Malaysian ambassador to Tehran, Mohamad Sadik bin Kethergany, Larijani expressed hope that the brotherly relations between the two countries could be extended to the private sector.

Iran says that the world powers active in the region seek to sell their weaponry by breeding a false state of danger.

“The Westerners cannot bear the thought of security and solidarity among regional countries,” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Last year.

“They have survived largely by sowing discord and inciting instability in the region.”

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year that American defense and aerospace firms grabbed 54 percent of all arms sales in the Middle East region between 2005 and 2009.

The US has also become the main supplier of advanced military weapons to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — snatching that market away from France, which accounted for 21 percent.

The report singles out Qatar as the biggest market for American arms dealers in the region. The country purchased 98 percent of all its new weapons from the US during the four-year period.

Washington also approved a 60-billion-dollar arms sale to Riyadh. The deal represents the largest-ever arms contract between the two nations. Saudi Arabia spent some USD 37 billion on arms between 2001 and 2008.