TEHRAN – Former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian has said that unlike some regional countries such as Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, Saudi Arabia is not ready to engage with Iran.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Mousavian said the Saudis prefer to ally themselves with Israel rather than Iran, adding that Riyadh has expanded cooperation with Tel Aviv in order to challenge Iran.

He also said that Saudi Arabia and its allies are pouring terrorists – by the tens of thousands – into Syria in order to overthrow the legal government in Damascus.

60 percent of Syria is in the hands of terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, he said, adding that Iran is supporting the Assad government which is the legal government in Syria in order to fight the terrorists.

The former diplomat further said Iran is present in Syria upon request by the central government in order to help the Syrian nation take their land back from the foreign-backed terrorists.

“The reason too many Syrian people have been killed is not because of Assad, it’s because the other countries recruited tens of thousands of terrorists from all over the world,” he noted.

Referring to some Arab countries in the region, Mousavian said they are pouring terrorists into Syria to bring a regime collapse in Syria and to put terrorists in power in Damascus.

Iran is supporting a “power-sharing” system in Syria “so that Sunnis, Alawites, Kurds and Christians” could take part in a UN-supervised general election to determine their fate.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Mousavian pointed to the chaos in Libya, saying NATO, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the GCC attacked the country and overthrew the dictator, however they did not think who was going to rule Libya and this caused the country to become a failed state. 

He said certain Arab and Western countries are blaming Iran for the situation in Syria, if it is so then why they are not able to silence the guns in Libya where neither Iran nor Russia are intervening in.

MH/PA