Supreme Leader’s Aide: US Seeking to Use Turkey as Counterbalance to Iran

Senior Military Aide to The Leader of Islamic Ummah Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said that the US is trying to raise Turkey as a strategic rival to Iran in a move to prevent Iran’s clout in the region.

“They (Americans) think that they should be present in West Asia and North Africa to guarantee the survival and security of the Zionist regime and create a strategic rival to Iran and this rival is Turkey,” Safavi said, addressing a gathering here in Tehran on Wednesday.

“As far as regional developments are concerned, Americans do not want to see Iran as the No.1 power of the region. To that end, they sparked the recent events and issues in Syria and are trying to create chaos in that country with the help of the money of some Arab countries, US policy-making and the proxy role played by Turkey.”

“That is while” he added “Iran’s ruling system is a powerful system and the region’s number one power which is based on the columns of the great Iranian nation who are loyal to Islam and their political system.”

Turkey along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been supporting terrorists and rebel groups in Syria and have practically brought a UN peace initiative into failure to bring President Assad’s government into collapse.

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 2011, 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.