US, West meddling spreads terrorism: Iran MP

Meddling by the United States and its allies has led to the spread of terrorism and created crises in the region, Chairman of Iran’s Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi says.

In a Monday meeting with South Africa’s House Chairperson for International Relations in the National Assembly Fatima Hajaig, the senior Iranian lawmaker added that the expansion of parliamentary ties between the two countries would play an important role in strengthening bilateral cooperation in all fields.

He pointed to the West’s unfair sanctions against Iran over its nuclear energy program and said, “Three decades after the US and West sanctions, the Islamic Republic of Iran achieved has considerable progress in various fields of science and technology by relying on domestic capabilities and experts.”

The South African parliamentarian, for her part, said Iran is an important country in the Middle East and the Muslim world and stressed the importance of promoting bilateral ties.

She criticized the US and West’s unilateral sanctions against the Iranian nation and emphasized that every country has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Pointing to ongoing developments in the Middle East, particularly the Syrian crisis, Hajaig added that the so-called advocates of human rights and democracy in the world are the root cause of instability and spread of terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa.

Syria has been experiencing unrelenting militancy since March 2011. The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.