Sustainable Security Product of Collective Cooperation, Elimination of Hegemonic Interference

By Bahram Qassemi*

Today, Tehran hosts the first high-level meeting among the national security secretaries and advisors of Iran, Russia, China, India and Afghanistan to be presided over by Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani.

The day-long meeting is of great importance given the time and venue at which it is being held, its level, the quality of the issues to be discussed in it and the combination of the countries attending it.

It can mark a new beginning in the chain of high-level political and security cooperation and interactions among these major regional powers and actors.

Sustainable security is the missing link and an undeniable necessity of the present-day world. Security is a multifaceted and multidimensional issue which requires active interactions and constructive cooperation in political, economic and security fields among the influential regional players.

Absence of sufficient consensus, convergence and synergy among countries is one of the serious problems and challenges faced by them in ensuring sustainable security.

Among the major obstacles to ensuring sustainable security in the world are commercialization and importing of security by certain dependent and weak countries and the forcible entry of hegemonic and domineering powers to the arena.

Unfortunately the hardest blow has been, and is being, dealt to the regional stability and security by the presence of certain intimidated and despicable countries in our region, which have helped smoothen the path for transregional powers’ entry into the region and interference in regional states’ affairs. This issue as well as these countries are also among the main factors posing an obstacle to ensuring sustainable security in the region.

Among other issues, joint and coordinated battle against terrorism and terrorist groups is on the comprehensive and broad agenda of the meeting. These gruesome and fatal groups – such as Daesh, Al-Qaeda and other Takfiri terrorist groups – have developed on the back of US planning and intelligence direction, the Zionist regime’s military and operational backing and the financial and logistic supports of the reactionary states in the region such as Saudi Arabia. Now, after being defeated and expelled from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, they have set out for Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, South Asia and Central Asia as well as the Caucasus. That is why confronting these Takfiri and Wahhabi terrorist groups, which are as ruinous and disastrous as the plague, requires close intelligence and security cooperation among the countries in these regions, such as Iran, Afghanistan, India, Russia and China.

Undoubtedly, in light of closer collaboration among these countries, it will become possible, more than ever, to ensure stability and sustainable security and establish peace in this critical and highly sensitive region. Tehran’s meeting can be a beginning to the end of terrorism and extremism in Asia and other neighboring regions.

Fighting terrorism, in addition to battling the terrorist agents and proxies, requires coordination and convergence among all sovereign states to confront the roots of terrorism as well as its main supporters, sponsors and causes. No doubt, the experience of the Islamic Republic, as the chief victim of terrorism during the past forty years, can be of substantial and extremely effective assistance in this fight, given Iran’s unique and undeniable role in the decisive and comprehensive battle against terrorism.

Tehran security meeting is a serious warning to the main supporters and sponsors of terrorism, i.e. the triangle of the US, Zionist regime and Saudi regime. This innovation is hoped to broaden its scope and become globally pervasive with the cooperation and participation of other sovereign and free countries of the region, so that it helps internationally isolate terrorism and its criminal supporters.

Today, it is clear to everybody that in the absence of forming coalitions, political convergence, collective efforts towards ensuring security and economic cooperation among countries, it is not possible to start a serious and fundamental fight against global problems such as the catastrophe of terrorism, extremism, drug and people smuggling – as one of the main sources on which terrorism feeds –organized crimes and environmental challenges, which are gradually turning into major security problems.

To this list should be added the ominous and antihuman sanctions policies adopted by domineering powers, including the US, that use as a weapon against sovereign and free states imposing bans on trade and monetary transactions among nations and their economic sectors and restricting a country’s international exchanges.

Unquestionably, cooperation and coalition among sovereign states, including those attending Tehran’s meeting, can play a very significant role in confronting the sanctions and imposed policies of the US.

Once upon a time, security was a commodity owned by empires, colonial states and imperialist powers and other nations had to exchange their freedom, sovereignty and dignity for it to ensure their own security.

However, interventionist domineering states, such as the US, should be reminded that the colonial era ended in the 16th and 17th centuries, the age of large empires came to an end in the 18th and 19th centuries and the imperialism period terminated in the 20th century. Today, in the 21st century, except a few weak and subservient states in the region and the criminal and child-murdering Zionist regime, which all seek a hegemonic and domineering power to guarantee their security, most of the world’s free and sovereign countries, particularly in the Eastern part, want to decide their fate and ensure their security themselves and do not seek permission from any power in this path.

Tehran’s meeting can be a beginning for greater security cooperation and convergence among sovereign states and the Eastern world’s non-hegemonic powers.

* Bahram Qassemi is the spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Source: IRNA