Cleric: Iran Supports Regional Nations' Right of Self-Determination
Tehran's provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said Iran believes that all the regional nations, including Bahrain and Palestine, should enjoy the right to determine their own fates.
Addressing a large and fervent congregation of worshipers here in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Khatami reiterated that Iran believes in the rule of the people, be it in the occupied Palestinian territories or Bahrain.
"In Syria likewise, every Syrian should have a vote. The US and the European Union have been exporting terrorists to Syria for two years; however, Syrian-Syrian talks are the only solution to the Syrian problem,"
He pointed to a recent report by the UN Human Rights High Commission indicating that 100 people have been killed in Bahrain and 1,600 are in prisons, and said, "People of Bahrain have a logical demand; why does the government not consider the demand?"
Earlier this month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad underlined that the Syrian people are the only ones who have the right to determine their own fate.
"Our efforts are aimed at making the Syrian groups close and harbingering compromise among them, holding free and fair elections, so that that the nation would decide about its fate all by itself," Ahmadinejad said an interview with Egypt's Nile TV.
"The prevailing conditions in Syria bother us, because regardless of who gets killed, they are all Syrian people," he added.
"In Bahrain, too, we pursue the same policy and we have told them to sit and come to terms with each other and hold free and fair elections," Ahmadinejad said at the time.
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.
Source:
farsnews.com
