Splitting Iraq A Non-Starter: Iran’s Velayati
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A plot hatched by the US and some other countries that entails disintegration of Iraq will get nowhere with the vigilance of Iraqis, Head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Expediency Council Ali Akbar Velayati said.
“Unfortunately, certain countries, including the US, seek to break up Iraq… but it should be said that Iraq has a united nation comprising the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, who won’t let such an ominous plot materialize,” Velayati said Sunday in a meeting in Tehran with UN Special Representative for Iraq Jan Kubis.
The Iranian official further voiced Tehran’s backing for any UN-monitored measures to bring about peace, security and stability in Iraq.
For his part, Kubis said the UN calls on the Iraqi groups to support the central government to avert instability.
Iraq has been the scene of clashes between military forces and the ISIL terrorists since the foreign-backed militants attacked the Arab country from Syria in summer 2014.
The terrorists made advances in northern and western Iraq after capturing swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, have blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive.