Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 21 / Trend T.Jafarov /
The United States has been pursuing a policy of spreading "fear of Iran" in Iran's neighboring countries for a long time, Iranian Saderat (Export) Bank Director, ex-Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mohammad Jahromi told Trend.
Earlier, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey stated that it is necessary to develop common measures to protect Azerbaijan's financial system from the threat posed by Iran, to help to protect the reputation of the country's financial sector and to attract investments to the country.
As it was repeatedly stressed, Azerbaijan is an important strategic partner of the United States. Thus, the U.S. and Azerbaijan's positions should be brought together on Iran's nuclear program," Levey said during his visit to the country. "Iran is a threat not only to the region's countries, but for the whole world, and, given the geographical proximity of Azerbaijan and Iran, Baku must be more vigilant."
Counterbalancing to the U.S. demands, Iran continues to support economic cooperation with neighboring countries that are linked with the Islamic Republic with historical and cultural ties, Jahromi said. "We do not consider our neighboring countries as threat to us and Iran poses no threat to its neighbors," he said.
Jahromi is on a visit to Azerbaijan to attend the third International Conference on "Financial Institutions - the basis of structural modernization of the CIS economy" in Baku. He was invited to the event as a special guest.
Jahromi said the region's economy is developing in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation among neighboring countries, which causes great concern of the U.S. "The Iran-Azerbaijan relations do not have any threatening factors. Two countries are linked with historical ties and they continue to cooperate," he added.
The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons for military purposes under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy program. Tehran denies the charges, saying that its nuclear program is aimed solely at meeting the country's electricity needs. The U.N. Security Council adopted six resolutions in connection with the suspension of Iran's nuclear program.
The UN Security Council adopted another resolution, which provides for tougher sanctions against Tehran in connection with its refusal to cease its uranium enrichment June 9, 2010. This is the fourth resolution, adopted by the Security Council because of Tehran's unwillingness to comply with international requirements concerning the clarification of several issues of the world community over the Iranian nuclear program, including the existence of the military component.
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