Velayati urges UN to identify countries backing terrorism

Head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Expediency Council Ali Akbar Velayati called on the United Nations to name those countries that support terrorist groups in the region.

“Given its responsibility, the UN ought to identify the countries that support terrorists (such as) ISIL in the region because without foreign backing, ISIL would be defeated by Iraqi forces,” Velayati said Sunday in a meeting with UN Special Representative for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov.

The Iranian official stated that some Western countries in cooperation with certain regional states have helped terrorist groups emerge”.

He added that groups like the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were created, trained, financed and armed by countries that claim to be fighting terrorism.

Velayati also voiced Iran’s readiness to cooperate internationally in the fight against ISIL.

The ISIL terrorists currently control swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq. They have been committing heinous crimes in the captured areas, including mass executions and beheading of local residents as well as foreign nationals.

The Western powers and their regional allies- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey- are believed to have been supporting terrorist groups in the region.