Leading, funding terrorism concentrated in single base

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani says bids to coordinate and fund acts of terrorism are led from a concentrated base of support, saying the campaign against the menace should likewise be carried out through coordinated regional efforts.

“Regional cooperation and the adoption of collective bids by countries that have stakes [in the issue] are the only means to effectively counter terrorism and establish security and stability in the region,” Shamkhani said on Wednesday evening.

He made the remarks in a joint meeting with Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Lukyanov, and Second Deputy of the National Security Council (NSC) of Afghanistan Wakil Mohammad Ibrahim Qasimi in Tehran.

Shamkhani emphasized that the root ideological causes of terrorism must be addressed because they are the main reasons behind disenchanted youths accepting to be recruited by terrorist groups in countries with dictatorial regimes.

The senior Iranian official also described terrorism as a non-indigenous scourge, which has been introduced by outsiders to the region, and whose priority is to waste the economic potentials and manpower of regional states.

A tripartite meeting between Iran’s deputy secretary of SNSC Saeed Iravani and Lukyanov, Qasimi was held in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon to assess the security condition of the region, the consolidation of trilateral cooperation and to draw up a roadmap for the campaign against terrorism.

In his Wednesday evening remarks, Shamkhani hoped that the tripartite security meeting would serve as an initial step toward enhancing regional cooperation, and preparing the proper ground for the contribution of other countries to obtain tangible results.

The deputy heads of Russian and Afghan high security councils, for their part, welcomed Tehran’s initiative to form the tripartite meeting.