Enemy seeks Middle East domination: Ahmadinejad

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says enemies seek to dominate the entire Middle East region, stressing that the Syrian issue is part of a bigger scheme.

“All [nations] must be vigilant and not be fooled by the … enemy,” Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with the visiting Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour in Tehran on Sunday.

“Enemies in our region do not tolerate any powerful country. They only recognize the Zionist regime [of Israel] and safeguarding it is important to them. In their opinion, other countries must be sacrificed,” the incumbent Iranian president stated.

He added that great developments would take place in the future and “Iran and Lebanon must play a role in these developments and safeguard the freedom, justice and dignity of nations.”

Ahmadinejad said Iran and Lebanon have stood up to enemies, paid the price of their resistance, and emerged victorious.

The president further stressed the importance of national reconciliation and unity as the only ways to improve the ongoing situation in Syria.

The crisis in Syria began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

Reports show the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country and that a very large number of the militants fighting in Syria are foreign nationals.

The Lebanese minister, for his part, said the events happening in Syria are not limited to the country and affect other regional states as well.

Mansour criticized a decision by certain countries to arm the militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, saying such a move only prolongs violence and does not help resolve the Syria crisis.

During talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday, top diplomats from Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the US agreed to “provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people.”

On Friday, militants announced that they had received new weapons that could lead to “changes” in the war against the Syrian government.

Several international human rights organizations have accused militants operating in Syria of committing war crimes.