Senior MP: Western States Seeking to Destabilize Syria, Region

Head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi warned that the western powers are striving hard to destabilize Syria in a move to disturb security in the region.

“The western powers want to provoke instability in this sensitive and strategic region using the developments in Syria,” Boroujerdi said in a meeting with Deputy Head of Iran-China Parliamentary Friendship Association Xua Li Ming in Tehran on Tuesday.

He said reinvigoration of peace and stability as well as preventing the spread of unrests and instability in the region is Iran’s policy towards the regional developments.

During the meeting, Xua Li Ming referred to the regional developments, and said, “The western countries should not be allowed to endanger the independence and national identity of the regional states.”

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.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

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 increasing unrests in Syria.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported last month 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 three months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said last month 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.