“Let’s celebrate Spring’s renewal by renewing hope for children in Syria & Yemen. Let’s all join the WAVE: World Against Violence & Extremism,” Zarif said in a video message posted on his official Twitter account on Wednesday.
He added, “Our common threat today is the growing menace of violent extremism and outright barbarism. Iran was the first to rise to the challenge and propose to make confronting this threat a global priority…”.
Stressing that Iran has long been in the forefront in the fight against extremism, Zarif said, “To deal with this new challenge, new approaches are badly needed”.
Over the past six years, Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored militancy. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated in August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the Syrian crisis until then. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
Also, since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been launching deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to the fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. At least 11,000 Yemenis, including women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.