Iran supports Afghan gov't to fight insecurity and violence: spokesman

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that Iran's policy is to back the legal government of Afghanistan to fight insecurity and violence in the country, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Mehmanparast said that the Iranian government supports the Afghan government's attempts to fight drug trafficking and to uproot insecurity and violence in the country, according to the report.

The reconstruction of Afghanistan is a top priority of the Iranian government, he said in his weekly press briefing.

Iran said that only regional powers could bring stability to the region and has called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

On Monday, Iran participated in talks with an international contact group on the future of Afghanistan, and sent a high- ranking diplomat to an in-depth briefing by U.S. General David H. Petraeus.

Iranian Mohammed Ali Qanezadeh, the Foreign Ministry's director general for Asia, and a representative from the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, a leading Islamic voice on the international stage, participated in the high-level meeting in Rome, which gathered the Afghan government, NATO, the EU, UN and other key players.

Source: Xinhua