Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei received Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Monday evening. Mr. Nazarbayev is leading a delegation of economic officials and tradesmen to Tehran.
Ayatollah Khamenei believed that the west systematically failed in fighting and curbing terrorism they claimed had origins in Islamic countries of the Middle East; “the fact that all terrorists engaged in acts of terrorism within the past months had European nationalities belie their purported attempts to fight terrorism; they are not honest and serious in effectively facing the threat of terrorism, and would only resort to double standards and division of terrorists to bad and good terrorists,” said Ayatollah Khamenei, who provided an alternative for Islamic countries to fill this gap in fighting terrorism; “unity and accurate assessment of the situation to bring convergence to attempts by these countries, which are sometimes waged individually, could be effective in bringing terrorism to its knees and keep at bay the disturbing threat,” he added.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution criticized the west for their attempts to isolate the Islamic countries and prevent an effective unity; “the important issue is that Muslim countries face terrorism acting in the name of Islam and in fact against Islam; the hypocrisy of the west entails more active engagement by Islamic countries in a framework informed by common sense and rationality,” emphasized the Leader.
Ayatollah Khamenei then turned to bilateral relations in economy and trade between Iran and Kazakhstan; “despite huge common grounds especially in culture, religion and history, Iran and Kazakhstan have not achieved much in developing ties; Kazakhstan and Iran have a very close and friendly relation and both countries share the same positions in important international issues, but economic and cultural relations suffer insufficient ties,” he suggested.
“Both Iran and Kazakhstan would effectively cooperate in wider range of topics and fields, including transportation, trade, Caspian Sea legal regime and cultural issues and tourism; we welcome attempts to address especially Caspian Sea legal regime,” added the Leader.
Nursultan Nazarbayev for his part, said that Iran was a great, strong, and reliable neighbor for his country; “both countries have ample capacities to improve ties; in the present visit, we inked important deals which will revolutionize the current level of relations; terrorism is a grave threat; the migrant crisis and terrorism are two twin foster children of western interventionist policies in sovereign countries of the region to destabilize them,” Mr. Nazarbayev told the meeting. “We are in unanimity in believing in the fact that unity is a valuable gem for Islamic countries which had almost become hard to grasp by these countries; through unity, Islamic world could establish anew their religion as a religion of peace and denial of depravities and terrorism,” he concluded.
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