Islamic Iran Rigid about Expansion of Ties with Iraq

Iran said new opportunities should be exploited by Tehran and Baghdad to further expand their ties and cooperation.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Saeed Jalili, who is in Iraq after a tour of the regional countries which had earlier taken him to Lebanon and Syria, met with Iraq’s Vice-President Khudayr Musa Jafar Abbas al-Khuzai in Baghdad on Thursday.

At the meeting Jalili noted the eye-catching progresses made by various Muslim nations in recent decades, and said enemies are conducting extensive efforts to prevent cooperation among Islamic countries, specially after the start and growth of the recent waves of Islamic Awakening in the region.

Thus, Muslims should increase their vigilance to make a proper use of the new opportunities, he said.

Jalili further pointed to the high political, cultural and economic capacities and potentials of both Iran and Iraq, and reiterated the necessity for the growing expansion of the two countries’ all-out ties and cooperation, specially considering that Baghdad presides over the Arab League and Tehran chairs the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The Iraqi vice-president noted the current unrests in Syria, and said the crisis in the Muslim country was the result of a plot which aimed to stir ethnic and sectarian strife in the country.

“This conspiracy is not limited to Syria and insecurity can prevail in the entire region if the Muslim world elites do not take vigilant and due action,” he cautioned.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of stirring unrests in Syria once again.

The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system. Media reports said that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad’s government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

According to the report, material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border.

Opposition activists who four months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.