AhlulBayt News Agency

source : FNA
Saturday

11 June 2011

7:30:00 PM
246912

Iran ready to solve Bahrain crisis

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says Tehran is prepared to present its plan for resolving Bahrain's crisis whenever Manama announces its readiness.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - In his press conference on June 7, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would present a plan to resolve Bahrain's problems when “certain conditions are met.”

“We are holding various talks [with different parties],” Salehi said on the sidelines of the second International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Tehran on Sunday.

Anti-government protests against the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain began in mid-February.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed troops to the country to help Bahraini forces suppress nationwide protests.

Scores of people have been killed and many more arrested in the Saudi-backed crackdown on peaceful protests in Bahrain -- a longtime ally of the US and home to a huge military base of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

Commenting on US sanctions against Iranian military and security officials, Salehi said Iran's Majlis has taken measures in this regard and announced the names of a number of Western officials who have committed different crimes such as drug trafficking.

Earlier in May, Majlis imposed sanctions against 26 American officials who have a history of rights violation.

The blacklisted officials include the commander of US forces in Iraq General Raymond T. Odierno, former FBI chief Thomas J. Pickard and the former commander of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Geoffrey D. Miller.

Current Guantanamo commander Rear Admiral Jeffery Harbeson and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are also among the blacklisted officials.

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