Iran not to support US action in Iraq: President Rouhani

TEHRAN (Tasnim) � Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Tehran does not support the US military operations in Iraq, describing any threats to the holy sites in the Arab country as red line for the Islamic Republic.

In an interview with American network NBC News ahead of his visit to the United Nations, Rouhani said Tehran will not support US action in Iraq and described the US-led coalition against ISIL as �ridiculous�.

�This coalition is to some extent ridiculous as some members of the coalition are the ones who created these terrorists groups (operating in Syria and Iraq) and financed- and still finance- them�,� the Iranian chief executive underscored.

Asked about Iran�s assistance to Iraq in its fight against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Rouhani said Tehran will provide Iraq with any support it requests for combating ISIL.

Rouhani denounced ISIL for its brutality, saying that the terrorist group�s actions run counter to the tenets of Islam.

�� from the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing an innocent person equals the killing of the whole humanity. And therefore, the killing and beheading of innocent people in fact is a matter of shame for them and it�s a matter of concern and sorrow for all mankind,� he stressed.

Meanwhile, the Iranian president described posing any threats to �Atabat�- Iraq�s holy cities like Karbala and Najaf- are Iran�s red line.

�When we say red line we mean it,� the president said. �It means we will not allow Baghdad to be occupied by the terrorists or the religious sites such as Karbala or Najaf to be occupied by the terrorists.�

Elsewhere in the interview, Rouhani said Iran is determined to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue. ��we have no doubt that the only solution to the nuclear issue goes through negotiation.�

Nuclear negotiators representing Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are now in New York to hold a fresh round of talks on Tehran�s civilian nuclear work.

The negotiations are expected to run until at least September 26 on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

Iran and the sextet are trying to work out a lasting accord aimed at ending the longstanding dispute over Tehran�s civilian nuclear activities.

By Tasnim News Agency

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My commnentary has always been widely supported at Iranian.com.
US discussion forums routinely attack me.

Here is why: I find foreign leaders, such as Rouhani, or Putin, or Xi Jinping to make sense, while the speeches of Obama (for whom I hopefully voted twice)and other US leaders (Kerry, McCain, Clinton) seem deceptive and full of arrogance, hubris, and flawed assumptions.

The way that these foreign leaders are represented in the Western and US media is totally distorted and serves only specious propaganda purposes (blame Putin for the fiasco US financed in Ukraine, blame Iran for destabilzing MD while selling fascist Saudi Arabia, primary sponsor of terrorism, 60 billion in weapons, destroying secular governments (authoritarian but stable) in Libya, Iraq, and (trying to in Syria)to be replaced either by authoritarian governments which are NOT stable or total chaos and civil war. If division and destabilization is the goal, US policy is succeeding. But such success comes at a terrible price, fulfilling bin Laden's goal of bankrupting the US through military overextension.

Even those Americans who want to take up arms against the US govt because Obama is a traitor, or Obama is lying, when told that Obama is lying about Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Israel, etc, they curse me out. This irony produces a political style which can only be described as farce, with people seeking to impeach the President attacking ME for pointing out that he is lying to them about Libya, about Iran, about Ukraine.

In the end the arm chair revolutionaries, with their small stockades of guns, are just sheeple when it comes to believing the overarching government lie about American exceptionalism and the "duty" to police the world, with troops in 130 nations, bombings in 5, 3 or 4 criminal wars in the past 15 years, and a defense budget overall costing more than the entire federal income tax revenue, more than the next 15 major countries, and an economy built on war, arms sales (which are arms races, which result in war), and the marriage of those who profit from war: Big Finance (which can finance both sides!), energy which fuels war, and the weapons makers, etc who furnish the equipment of death, so much so that they are giving away the surplus to schools and local police departments.

As a result of rejecting the need for US hegemony and indeed seeing it as the downfall of the nation and democracy/equality/liberty/prosperity, my view appear to resonate with readers of iranian.com readers, while rankling most of my fellow citizens.

That's the price of being a citizen of the world.