Iranian President Voices Concern about Syria, Yemen, Iraq

“War and exacerbation of regional differences doesn’t benefit any country and all the regional governments should try to establish sustainable peace and tranquility,” President Rouhani said in a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan in Tehran on Tuesday.

Expressing concern about the situation of the regional states, including Syria, Yemen and Iraq, he said, “Resolving the existing problems and crises in any of these countries will be a source of pleasure and beneficial to the entire region, and Iran and Armenia can have good cooperation with each other in this regard.”

Karapetyan, for his part, described Iran’s positions on the international scene as beneficial to the development of friendly relations among countries, and said, “Iran’s balanced positions on regional issues will guarantee more peace and stability in the region.”

In relevant remarks earlier this month, President Rouhani underlined Tehran’s firm opposition to separatism in the region, and called on the Iraqi Kurdistan region’s officials to make up for their wrong decision to hold an independence referendum.

“Iran and Turkey don’t accept at all exacerbation of ethnic and religious differences and separatist moves which have been plotted by the conspirators and aliens for our region, and in the two countries’ views, Iraq is a unitary country and Syria is a unitary state too,” President Rouhani said at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran last Wednesday.

Stressing that Tehran and Ankara don’t accept change in geographical borders at all, he said, “Iraq’s Kurdistan is one of our good neighbors and brothers and we don’t want to put any pressure on the people in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, but some wrong decisions that certain leaders of this (Iraqi Kurdistan) region have taken should be revised and compensated.”