Mohammad Javad Zarif and Mr. Gerhard Schroeder met in Tehran on Monday. Mr. Schroeder heads a high-ranking economic and official delegation to Iran. The meeting covered the regional developments as well as matters of mutual interest. Zarif told the meeting that with the implementation of JCPOA entering to new phases, Iran’s relations with Germany would take a new turn to improvement, which will have huge gains for the region in moving toward peace and stability.
Foreign minister also believed Saudi-fostered extremism was a grave danger for the region and invited open hostility and instability to the Middle East; “Takfirism is the major threat to the region and Saudi Arabia is the nourishing source of fanaticism which provides the terrorist extremist groups through its Wahhabist ideology and infinite financial sources the Kingdom enjoys,” said Mr. Zarif. “In a letter to foreign ministers of world countries, we expounded Saudi Arabia’s measures and actions taken out of their blatant hatred of Iran during past two years, and our exercise of restraint in the face of all these petty and hostile measures as well,” Zarif told Schroeder, going to provide examples of such actions; “sexual harassment of two Iranian teenagers in Jeddah airport and more importantly, Mina stampede during Hajj rituals provoked negative sentiments and reactions in Iranian public; however, we wisely avoided open retaliation,” he added.
“We would interpret Saudi antics in inciting tension through all its propaganda hype as the kingdom’s very gross behavior of newly acquired leaders; in Syria, Iran has always taken a wise and responsible position; we see Syrian crisis as a purely political issue; on the far end of this continuum lies Saudi Arabia which has waged a misguided effort to solve the crisis through military means, with devastating outcomes for the Syrian people and territorial integrity,” Zarif denounced Saudi Syria position.
Gerhard Schroeder for his part expressed gratitude for the fact that JCPOA was approaching its implementation; “Germany sees good prospects for its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and German industry moguls are fully prepared to cooperate with Iran’s industries and invest in Iran’s economy,” he added.
“Germany and the EU at large hope to exploit opportunities coming from removal of sanctions to actually use Iran’s capacities to solve crises in the Middle East,” Mr. Schroeder told Zarif.
Both officials discussed developments in Yemen and possible ways out of the crisis in Syria.
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