TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said here on Tuesday that efforts by the U.S. to create tension between Iran and its Arab neighbors would fail.

Regional countries have been living side by side peacefully for years, linked by a common history and inseparable cultural and religious affinities, Mottaki added.
The tension-building policies imported by external powers can never undermine the strong affinities shared by the people of the region,” the Iranian foreign minister told reporters at a press conference.
He said the U.S. knows very well that its unjustified support for the expansionist and warmongering regime of Israel is the root cause of the problems in the Middle East.
U.S, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Arab leaders Tuesday that they would be rewarded with multi-billion dollar arms deals for countering Iran.
""The U.S. is looking to assure our allies that we are going to be reliable for meeting their security needs,"" Rice said at a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. She added that the deals ""fall in the long line of American efforts to help ensure security of friends and allies in the region"".
Earlier, Rice had unveiled details of the proposed $20 billion deal for Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and the renewal of a $13 billion deal with Egypt, hours before she and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Egypt at the start of their Middle East tour.
She added that the deals would be balanced with a 25 per cent increase in military aid to Israel worth $30 billion over 10 years.
The Iranian top diplomat said some U.S. officials are the “major shareholders of arms manufacturing companies” and they are trying to gain great profits through such arms sales by creating a false sense of fear among regional states.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told reporters on Monday that U.S. policy ""is creating fear and concerns in the countries of the region and trying to undermine the good relations between these countries.""
""What the Persian Gulf region needs is security, stability, peace, prosperity and economic development,"" Hosseini added.
Rice told reporters traveling with her en route to a refueling stop in Ireland on Monday that “There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see""