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South Africa: Iran Fortify Bilateral Relations
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Bathandwa Mbola
Pretoria
South Africa and Iran have strengthened their bilateral relations after Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs, Mohammad Reza Baqeri held talks with his counterpart Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad on Thursday.
At the meeting, the two deputy ministers conferred about political, economic and trade issues.
Briefing reporters after the meeting Mr Pahad said they discussed issues regarding the situations in Palestinian, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear programme, among others.
"The meeting was an excellent opportunity to get an understanding of developments in the region that you all know are the greatest threat to international peace and stability," Mr Pahad said.
He called on the international community to counter the threats posed by the United States and Israel against Iran.
"It is our view that the continued threats to attack Iran are not in the interest of world peace and stability and the international community must mobilise to prevent any such actions by whatever power that be," said the deputy minister.
This as the world was divided about Iran's indication that it aims to embark on a programme of building nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear aims are only peaceful and has refused to sit down at the negotiating table if it has to suspend uranium enrichment even before the talks begin.
International talks will be held on Saturday in Geneva to try to eliminate threats from Iran's nuclear program.
The so-called P5-plus-1 stands for permanent members of the UN Security Council which are the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany are said to be part of the talks.
Also addressing the media, Mr Baqeri said Iran had proven its support for regional peace and security.
He said Iran also had the legitimate right to establish and proceed with its nuclear energy programme adding that Iran was not a threat.
Mr Bageri further noted that the Southern African region has the right to sort out its own political situations just as the Middle East has this right, Iranian deputy foreign minister said.
"Regional problems must be resolved by regional states and foreign interference must be stopped," Mr Bageri said, adding that the two sides agree that the issues of the region should be left to the region.
Mr Pahad echoed his counterpart saying that in both the case of Zimbabwe and Iran there should be no outside interference.
Both ministers agreed that excellent progress had been made in their bilateral talks and that the relationship of the two countries would continue and would be built on.
The bilateral talks laid the basis for the 10th South Africa-Iran joint economic commission that will be co-chaired by South Africa Foreign Minister Dlamini Zuma and Hossein Samsani, the Iranian Acting Minister of Economy and Finance in Tehran on 2 and 3 August.
"This is an important Non-Aligned Movement meeting because it will assess the new challenges we face in the fuel crisis which impacts on the food crisis and its total impact on our developmental agenda.
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"As it is going to be hosted in Iran, Iran being a key player in the whole energy industry, it will be an opportunity to concretely look at the challenges of the fuel crisis," Mr Pahad.
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