Supporting anti-Israel resistance unchanging policy for Iran: Envoy

Iran’s Ambassador to Beirut Ghazanfar Roknabadi says strengthening anti-Israel resistance is among the unchanging policies of the Islamic Republic.

“Strengthening the spirit of resistance against the usurper Zionist regime as well as supporting the resistance [front] is among the unchanging principles of the Islamic Republic,” Roknabadi said in a Saturday meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Roknabadi added that helping Lebanon’s stability is among Iran’s main priorities. He also underlined the need for unity among regional countries in order to thwart enemy plots.

Berri, for his part, pointed to enemy plots to create ethnic and religious rifts and emphasized the need for regional countries to keep united.

He also called for an immediate, peaceful solution to the Syrian unrest and said the continued crisis in the Arab country could make other regional countries insecure and would help the spread of extremist ideas.

Syria has been in crisis since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

The Lebanese official also congratulated the victory of Hassan Rohani in the June 14 presidential election and said his moderate character would help Iran better interact with regional and world countries.

He said that the Iranian nation’s high voter turnout had created an epic unprecedented anywhere else in the world and this popular turnout shows the height of democracy in Iran.

Rohani secured an outright victory in Iran’s presidential election by garnering more than half of the 36.7 million ballots cast.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians were eligible to participate in the presidential election. The voter turnout in the election was 72.7 percent, according to the Interior Ministry.