Iran: Indigenous mechanisms, regional cooperation guarantee sustainable security

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Akbar Ahmadian made the remarks in a Sunday meeting with the visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Tehran.

“Fortunately, the countries in the region have reached the common understanding that a security borrowed [from others] would not be guaranteed and lasting,” Ahmadian said, adding that only “indigenous mechanisms and regional cooperation can guarantee sustainable security” in the region.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian official underscored the necessity for the two countries to join hands in countering Islamophobia and desecration of the Holy Qur’an.

“As two great countries in the Muslim world, Iran and Turkey are bound to fulfill their faith-based and historical duty [to stand up] in the face of the onslaught launched against the beliefs of millions of the world’s Muslims by the agents of international Zionism,” Iran’s top security official stressed.

Over the past several months, Muslims’ holy book has been subject to multiple acts of desecration by extremist elements in a number of European countries, most notably Sweden and Denmark.

Speaking in July, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said Israel’s fingerprints could be traced in the acts of desecration.

A month later, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said Salwan Momika, an Iraqi national who has desecrated the Holy Qur’an several times during past months, is affiliated with the Israeli Mossad spy agency and has engaged in espionage activities against resistance groups in West Asia.

Ahmadian also pointed to longstanding cooperation between Tehran and Ankara, noting that relations between the two countries are conducive to security and stability in the region.

“Expansion of cordial relations between the two neighbors will help both Iran and Turkey meet their long-term interests,” he said.

The Turkish foreign minister, for his part, expressed his country’s interest in all-out expansion of mutual ties with the Islamic Republic.

Turkey’s top diplomat also expressed hope that a new chapter of bilateral and multilateral cooperation would open between the two countries.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, Fidan arrived in Tehran on Sunday and attended a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Later in the day, he also held a meeting with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi during which the Iranian president stressed that respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries is the most effective way to counter terrorism in the region.