Larijani: no Iranian plan for military acts in region
Regional-Iran, Politics, 9/14/2007

Iran's Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani said this week that Iran had never had a plan for military movement in the region and will not have such a plan in the future either.

Responding to a question posed by Al Alam reporter about US plan to set up a base on Iraq-Iran border, Larijani said that the Iranian president had said that Iraq does not need a caretaker, but, the westerners used the statement for propaganda campaign against Iran.

"What the president said is that Iraq has its own government and the Iraqi people are capable enough to determine their own fate." Larijani said that Iran had never planned for military movement in the region and the US has understood its failure in military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, though they want to cover up their desperation.

"The fact is that the Iraqi people will never allow the US to stay in Iraq and the US approach toward Iranian borders will be detrimental to them.

"The Iraqi government has made clear that it will not allow the US to establish a base in Iraq. We see the stance of the Iraqi government in line with Iraqi national sovereignty," Larijani said on Wednesday.

He advised the US not to waste time in the region and not to put its forces at risk.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday that talks between Iran and the Persian Gulf littoral states on expansion of mutual cooperation on free trade would start in the near future.

He said that "In a letter sent to the Secretary General of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council Abdul Rahman al-Attiya I have proposed mutual talks between Iran and the Persian Gulf littoral states on a free trade pact." The proposal was made ten days ago and it is expected that the meeting would be held in the near future, he said.

"We are willing to broaden political and economic ties with the regional and neighboring states," he said. "We have had good talks with the Secretary General of Arab League Amr Mousa to this end," he said.

Iran is determined to broaden and deepen cooperation with the Arab states based on mutual interests, he said.

Meantime, Iran's Majlis Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel Tuesday termed the current relations between Iran and the gulf state of Bahrain as "friendly." He made the remark in his meeting with Vice-Speaker of Bahrain National Assembly (Parliament) Fallah Ali and the new Bahraini Ambassador to Tehran Rashid bin Sa'ad al-Dousari.

Referring to historical, geographical, religious and cultural commonalties between Iran and Bahrain, he described the two sides' relations as quite successful and said the two nations enjoy a unified and brotherly spirit and they are aware that Iranians are not aggressors.

The US has always tried to frighten Iran's neighboring states, he underlined. Before the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, Iran always was among supporters of Israel in their fights against Arabs but the country is now endeavoring to broaden ties with Muslim as well as neighboring states.

Current parliamentary ties between Iran and Bahrain is the symbol of friendly relations between the two nations, he said and called for further expansion of parliamentary cooperation between the two countries.
At the meeting, Bahrain's vice speaker of parliament underlined expansion and consolidation of political, parliamentary, economic and cultural relations and described the two sides' relations as very profound.

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