Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the comments in a message to" the first national conference on diplomacy and cross-regional environmental challenges," which was held on Sunday at the office of political and international studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was read out by Reza Najafi, the deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs.
In his message, the top Iranian diplomat warned against the growing trend of the destruction of the environment and said that people are facing more and more environmental challenges at both local and international levels.
The foreign minister also said that foreign interference, the phenomenon of terrorism, and the creation of insecurity in some countries in the region have drawn all the attention of these countries to themselves, while environmental challenges have been neglected by them.
Elsewhere, he said that some developed countries impose illegal policies such as unilateral sanctions even on areas such as environmental cooperation, and create hurdles in the way of tackling environmental challenges.
Amir-Abdollahian went on to note that the environmental problems have affected the entire West Asia region as well as the development and well-being of the people of this region.
"Avoiding environmental cooperation is no good solution for any country. In the long run, these challenges will turn into environmental crises in the absence of cooperation, which will inflict huge costs on all countries in the region," he pointed out.
"I hope we will witness the significant development of these cooperations among the governments in the region. The national environmental diplomacy conference can be a prelude to holding an international conference on how to deal with dust storms next year in our country, a conference that will be held according to the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly with the aim of expanding international cooperation in this field."
MNA/14011207000449