Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani has described the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon as the “anchor of peace and stability” in West Asia.
He made the remarks during a press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib in Beirut on Monday.
“The firm and solid relations between Iran and Lebanon are critical to the region, just as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon is the anchor of stability and peace in the region,” Bagheri Kani said, stressing that Iran has always sought Lebanon’s stability and development.
He also noted that both he and the top Lebanese diplomat believe that all regional countries, especially the Muslim ones, should adopt a “collective approach” to confront the Zionists’ aggression against Palestine, especially in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
He further said that the two sides had discussed the holding of an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for “a joint and serious measure” against Israel.
Israel waged a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Hamas resistance movement carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
On May 7, the occupying regime began a ground offensive in Rafah, home to about a million displaced Palestinians who have fled from the rest of Gaza amid the Israeli onslaught.
So far, Israel has killed at least 36,439 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 82,627 others in the Gaza Strip.
Additionally in his remarks, Bagheri Kani thanked the Lebanese officials for extending sympathy to the Iranian government and nation and declaring three days of national mourning over the martyrdom of Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash last month.
Bou Habib, for his part, warned that the continuation of Israel’s Gaza war and its crimes against Palestinians weakens the chances of peace in the region.
He also emphasized that Tehran and Beirut share a common point of view about the threats posed by the Gaza assault.