Syrian Premier - Iranian Vice President chair joint Higher Committee-Meetings
The Syrian-Iranian Higher Committee, cochaired by the Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reda Aref and the Prime Minister Naji Otari began meetings at the headquarters of the Syrian Premiership.
Premier Otari expressed appreciation of Iran's supporting to the just Arab causes, stressing the two countries' stances and keeness on settling disputes among nations of the world and tackling the region's problems by political and diplomatic means out of their recognition of the importance of dialogue in establishing security, stability and just peace as well as development. He added that Syria and Iran are committed to the process of just and comprehensive peace and call on the international community to shoulder responsibility in the resumption of peace talks, which have been blocked by Israel, from the point they left off, in line with "Madrid term of reference" and the UN Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 425.
He stressed that those resolutions which call on Israel to withdraw from all the occupied Arab lands and from the occupied Syrian Golan and the rest of the Lebanese lands till the June 4th 1967 line, and enabling the Palestinian people restore their legitimate rights in returning home, and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The Premier said that the call for peace represents an international demand and expresses the wishes and hopes of the peoples of the region, but the U.S.-backed Israel has always stood against this demand and desire in defiance of the willingness of the international community by its aborting of the exerted efforts to establish just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and adopting the policy of aggression and threats against the countries of the region.
Otari added that everybody knows that Israel was and still stands behind the instability and troubles in the region as it is the side who benefits most from instigated discords and disputes among the region's countries and peoples, and as it is the biggest beneficiary from the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq and its repercussions on the region's security and stability.
The Premier indicated that the continued deterioration of the situation in Iraq under the absence of security and stability has become a source of persisting concern and unacceptable from the human, moral and legal considerations.
This necessitates that Arab and Islamic countries, particularly Iraq's neighboring countries, to coordinate efforts and endeavors regionally and internationally to find a way out to heal the wounds of the Iraqi people and put an end to their pains and sufferings, and end the occupation of their lands as well as restoration of sovereignty and selecting a representative government for all Iraqis as part of a national constitution that preserves the country's unity. He expressed the confidence that the ongoing meetings of the Syrian-Iranian Committee would come out with a formula to further boost bilateral relations in all fields.
For his part, the Iranian Vice-President Aref thanked the Syrian Premier for the warm hospitality accorded to the Iranian visiting delegation. Aref praised the firm relations binding the two friendly countries, calling for developing them in all fields, especially the economic, trade and cultural ones to rise up to the level political relations binding the two countries and their leaders President Mohammad Khatami and Bashar al-Assad. He pointed out to the two countries' position over the latest developments in the region and the threats against them as well as their identical points of view over what is going on in the occupied Palestinian lands and in Iraq.
