Iran is balance weight in region: Spox

Speaking in his weekly press conference, Nasser Kanaani highlighted the recent week as a hectic one for Iran’s diplomacy apparatus as two presidents visited Tehran for two important summits.

Iran’s smart dynamic diplomacy in recent months has leveraged all capacities in favor of the security of the region and Muslim countries, Kanaani said, adding that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a balance weight in the region that plays an important role in Syria and a reference on the crisis in Ukraine.

Instead of fake chaffy coalitions with huge costs out of the pockets of the region’s nations, the spokesman said, the region is in need of friendship, cooperation, neighborliness, and collective security.

On Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Tehran, he said that his visit was for participation in the Astana peace process summit and signing the long-term comprehensive cooperation document between Iran and Turkey.

He commented on a Reuters report on the talks between Iran and 4+1 to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying the subject drew a lot of attention, despite the American side’s claim that the negotiations held in Doha, Qatar, were unsuccessful.

Doha negotiations were good and have left the way open for the continuation of talks and the nuclear deal, he noted, adding that EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrel was working to facilitate a fresh round of talks.

The ground is ready for a deal, according to Kanaani who noted that Iran believed there was no problem, but the US needed to take a political decision and look into the talks from a US interests point of view instead of the Zionist regime’s.

He rejected US-made allegations that Iran was supplying drones to Russia, saying that any effort to link Iran-Russia cooperation with the Ukraine developments is illogical and politically motivated.

Iran’s position on the war between Russia and Ukraine was clear, he said, as Tehran has always called for a political solution and this was reflected in Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian counterpart.

Asked about comments made by the president of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations on Iran’s nuclear deterrence, Kanaani noted that Iran’s nuclear activities have always been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency which has emphasized the peacefulness of these activities in various reports.

Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa on the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction and there has been no change in Iran’s view and stance, the spokesman underlined.

Iran has been in touch with both Turkey and Syria on the potential military operation in northern Syria and has warned that such a measure could exacerbate the crisis in this country, according to Kanaani.

Commenting on remarks made by Russia’s ambassador to Iran saying that the West was seeking to promote homosexuality in Iran, he noted that foreign diplomats are expected to avoid commenting on Iran’s internal affairs.

The spokesman said that Iran and Saudi Arabia have had five rounds of rapprochement talks which were positive and forward, praising Iraq’s role as a good-faith mediator.

The talks were encouraging and we can have the next round in Baghdad at an appropriate level to leverage previous achievements to take tangible, serious steps, he underlined.

Kanaani said that Iran takes the UAE's willingness to send an ambassador to Iran as a good omen of a positive atmosphere in the region.

He stressed that detaining an Iranian diplomat in Belgium was a fully illegal process and a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention and called on Brussels to release Assadollah Assadi.

The spokesman castigated European countries for delisting Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) with the justification that the group has abandoned militancy and was considered a political group.

Kanaani also slammed Sweden’s government for the life sentence passed against Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri, noting that such a trial was wrong and in line with purification of a terrorist organization whose hands were in the blood of thousands of Iranian.