IRAN SAYS NATO INTERFERENCE IN CAUCASUS UNPRODUCTIVE
RIA Novosti
20:06 | 16/ 09/ 2008
TEHRAN, September 16 (RIA Novosti) – Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the Caucasus does not need NATO
interference in the region in the wake of the recent conflict in
Georgia.
"Countries in the Caucasus region can solve their own problems without
the interference of NATO or others," Ahmadinejad said at a meeting
with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan in Tehran.
"Such interference will only worsen the situation in the Caucasus,"
he added.
NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, heading a delegation of envoys from
all 26 members of the Western military alliance, arrived in Georgia
on Monday to discuss plans for Tbilisi’s possible NATO membership
and met with President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war in August after Georgian
forces had launched an attack on South Ossetia. Two weeks after
the conclusion of Moscow’s military operation to "force Georgia to
accept peace," Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another
separatist republic, as independent states.
The West heavily criticized both the recognition of the rebel
regions and what it called Russia’s "disproportionate" response to
the Georgian attack.
Russia and NATO have since frozen cooperation.
Ahmadinejad said the times of a unipolar world are over and called
for a new world order that could provide stable peace and friendship
among nations.
The Islamic Republic itself is in political standoff with the West
over the country’s nuclear program.
Iran is currently under three sets of relatively mild UN Security
Council sanctions for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment, which
it says it needs purely for electricity generation despite Western
accusations that the program is geared toward weapon production.