Parliamentarians welcome Iran’s Khamenei statement

Parliamentarians in Bahrain have welcomed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s statement as a pleasant surprise, but are of the view that Iran would have to move a long way to correct what it had already done by supporting the terrorists in Bahrain, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Speaking to the DT News, Deputy Speaker Ali Al Aradi said, “If you could analyse his full statement, at one hand, he was condemning the attack on Saudi Embassy, while on the other hand he was supporting the terrorists.”

“Attacking the Saudi embassy (in Tehran) … was really bad and harmed Iran and Islam, but this should not be an excuse to criticise our devout young people,” Khamenei was quoted as saying in the Reuters’ report.

Aradi said that things would not improve unless Iran stopped meddling in the internal affairs of Bahrain and other countries of the region. On his part, MP Mohammed Al Marafy stated, “Iran regime was too late to provide such a statement that did not contain a clear diplomatic apology.”

“It did not reach to the required level of friendly neighbourhood standards,” he commented.

Al Marafy said, “Iran with its continuous interfering into neighbours’ internal affairs, and since its establishment on 1979, it has been sending negative messages. Unfortunately the simple Arab man considers Iran as an enemy nowadays, similarly to the period during the Iraq-Iran War.”

Al Marafy added that GCC countries will remain united, will remain actively engaged with the Arab World and the Islamic World.

He also recalled that since GCC establishment, the council never recorded any single violation of the international law, neither it interfered into neighbours’ affairs. “However our hands are opened to help and assist in case of humanity crisis or charity activities. Iran is simply expected to be the same to us.”

MP and Chairperson Child and Woman Committee Roua Al Hayki said that it would be too early to say whether Khamenei’s statement would lead to normalization of relations between Iran and the GCC countries, but she was hopeful that the things would move in the right direction.

Shura Council member Dr. Mohammed Alkhozai said that condemning the attack might be good or first step towards improving the stale relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He said that the second step would be to bring culprits to justice and before that Iran should apologize to the Saudi Arabia to prove its goodwill as a good neighbour.