MANAMA: The Islamic Republic of Iran should respect the independent countries by resecting the sovereignty. Unless Iran wants to change its policies of hostilities there by no stability and security in the region. No stability in the Middle East can be guaranteed without a total change in behaviour by Iran, says Secretary General of the Arab League.
The Iranian approach, he said, to defend or protect the Shi’as living in other countries won’t work as this approach is basically creating problems. “The protection of the rights of the minorities is the basic duty of the respective states by making sure minorities are not marginalized. This job can’t be done by other countries as this amounts to a direct interference in the internal affairs of others.”
These bold observations were made by Aboul Gheith, the Secretary General of the Arab League during the last plenary session of the 12 Manama Dialogue IISS Security Summit in Bahrain on Monday and warned the countries who have been pursuing the policy of interference in internal affairs of others saying that “borders are sacred” and everyone has to respect the borders.
Rejecting the ideas of new security architecture in the Middle East, which has been touted by many Western thin tanks, will mean creation of new countries within a country, the Arab League Chief said it would trigger an ‘unending war’ in the region.
“Iran must refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain, as the Arab League was referring to the remarks of Bahrain’s Minister Foreign Affairs HE Shaikh Khalid. Similarly, the occupation of the UAE island by Iran are major irritants and destabilising factors in this region.
“If you try to play with borders and you’ll have continual wars and also new Middle East security architecture is premature as Arab world is in position of relatively weak on many fronts,” he added.
He advises Kurds to live within Arab, Turk, Persian nation states and ask for rights from within while emphasising on the point that borders are sacred.
“Kurds situation is very complex as they have more than three factions and have been living in very delicate geographic and political conditions and the policy of status quo and co-existence is seen as the only solution.”
He said that the current balance of power was unprecedently unbalanced and not in Arab states favour. “I have reservations and questions about a new regional security body as power in the Middle East is unbalanced. We Arabs have our disagreements – time is not right for negotiating new regional body, but we should think about it for future. “We cannot be sure what path Trump will follow in Middle East. It may take a year or more if at all the US President-elect wants to reverse Obama’s policies in the Middle East which are generally regarded as of US disengagement by many,” Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the IISS Security Summit.
