Fars News Agency :: Iranian FM Leaves for Bonn to Take Part in Afghanistan Conference
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi left for the German city of Bonn on Sunday to attend a high-profile conference on Afghanistan.
During the conference to be attended by Afghanistan's neighbors, except Pakistan, as well as the world powers, the Iranian top diplomat is due to brief participants about Tehran's views and stances on its eastern neighbor.
Salehi is heading a 10-member delegation at the Bonn II conference.
Islamabad will be absent from the meeting in protest at a last week US-led NATO air strike at a Pakistani border post, which led to the killing of, at least, 26 soldiers. Ever since the incident, relations between Islamabad and the West, specially the US, have growingly deteriorated.
Ten years after the first Afghanistan Conference in Bonn in 2001, the international community is meeting in Bonn again on 5 December 2011.
'International Afghanistan Conference: From Transition to Transition' is hosted by Afghanistan and will be chaired by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Yesterday, Iran's Ambassador to Germany Alireza Sheikh Attar told FNA that Tehran believes the status of the transition of power and the status of the country after the withdrawal of foreign forces should be considered as the basis for the Bonn 2 conference and the meeting shouldn't be used by the foreign occupiers to legitimize their longer military presence in Afghanistan.
"It is unacceptable that foreign forces declare they will exit Afghanistan but maintain their presence under another agreement with a new shape but with the same old conditions and objectives," Sheikh Attar noted.
"If so, the Bonn conference will become a theatrical move and cannot decide Afghanistan's future," he noted.
The Iranian diplomat also urged the Bonn conference organizers to attach priority to the views and concerns raised by the regional countries and listen to their benevolent recommendations.
Establishment of the US permanent bases in Afghanistan has become a bone of contention in the Afghan-US ties and raised deep concerns among the neighbors of the war-torn country.
Afghans and their neighbors, including Iran, have always deplored the move, stressing that the US permanent bases would be a source of continued insecurity for Afghanistan's neighbors.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi left for the German city of Bonn on Sunday to attend a high-profile conference on Afghanistan.
During the conference to be attended by Afghanistan's neighbors, except Pakistan, as well as the world powers, the Iranian top diplomat is due to brief participants about Tehran's views and stances on its eastern neighbor.
Salehi is heading a 10-member delegation at the Bonn II conference.
Islamabad will be absent from the meeting in protest at a last week US-led NATO air strike at a Pakistani border post, which led to the killing of, at least, 26 soldiers. Ever since the incident, relations between Islamabad and the West, specially the US, have growingly deteriorated.
Ten years after the first Afghanistan Conference in Bonn in 2001, the international community is meeting in Bonn again on 5 December 2011.
'International Afghanistan Conference: From Transition to Transition' is hosted by Afghanistan and will be chaired by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Yesterday, Iran's Ambassador to Germany Alireza Sheikh Attar told FNA that Tehran believes the status of the transition of power and the status of the country after the withdrawal of foreign forces should be considered as the basis for the Bonn 2 conference and the meeting shouldn't be used by the foreign occupiers to legitimize their longer military presence in Afghanistan.
"It is unacceptable that foreign forces declare they will exit Afghanistan but maintain their presence under another agreement with a new shape but with the same old conditions and objectives," Sheikh Attar noted.
"If so, the Bonn conference will become a theatrical move and cannot decide Afghanistan's future," he noted.
The Iranian diplomat also urged the Bonn conference organizers to attach priority to the views and concerns raised by the regional countries and listen to their benevolent recommendations.
Establishment of the US permanent bases in Afghanistan has become a bone of contention in the Afghan-US ties and raised deep concerns among the neighbors of the war-torn country.
Afghans and their neighbors, including Iran, have always deplored the move, stressing that the US permanent bases would be a source of continued insecurity for Afghanistan's neighbors.
