Islamabad, IRNA — Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif says ifGod forbid Saudi Arabia faces any foreign aggression or terrorism Iran willbe the first country to come to its assistance.
“We believe that security of our neighbors is our security and stabilitywithin our neighborhood is our stability, I hope they have the same feelingand I hope that they come to talks with us for resolving these problems,”he said while responding to a question during talk on “70 Years ofPakistan-Iran Relations and Future Prospects” at Institute of StrategicStudies in Islamabad.
“We offered dialogue to Saudi Arabia and we responded positively to allinitiatives including the initiative by former prime minister of PakistanNawaz Sharif,” he said.Zarif added ‘The problem is that our Saudi neighbors believe that it is intheir interest for the world to perceive that they are suffering from athreat.’
“We understand that we cannot exclude Saudi Arabia from this region but itis also important for them that they cannot exclude Iran from the regionand why we should exclude each other from the region,” he said.The minister said Iran and Saudi Arabia can invest heavily in Iraq andSyria and these are all possibilities that we have put on the table.
“We do not see any cause for us or even for them for animosity, and we tellthem you can’t buy security from outside,” he said.
Responding to another question, he said: ‘We will never allow anybody tohurt Pakistan from Iranian territory as we know Pakistan will never allowanybody to hurt Iran from its territory that is absolute commitment byIran.’He said: Our relations with India are not against Pakistan as we understandthat Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia are not against Iran.’
“We want to develop Chabahar as a complementary port to Gwadar not as acompeting port because we believe that this area requires a great deal ofdevelopment,” Zarif said.The foreign minister went on to say that Iran should also need toparticipate with Pakistan in China Pakistan Economic Projects (CPEC) and wehave offered Pakistan and China to participate in Chabahar.
“We believe that Chabahar and Gwadar need to be linked together through seaand land. There is an open invitation for Pakistan to join Chabaharproject,” said the minister.To a question Zarif said US President Donald Trump believes that JointComprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a valid multilateral agreement andhis trying to violate it would bring the isolation for the United States.