TEHRAN, Dec. 3 (MNA) – The Iranian president’s participation in the PGCC summit indicates Iran’s good will and intention to help bring regional states closer together, Hassan Hanizadeh, an expert on Arab affairs, said on Monday.

Hanizadeh told the Mehr News Agency that Persian Gulf Cooperation Council has always taken hostile stands on Iran, explaining that during the eight years of the Saddam regime’s war against Iran (1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war) most of the Persian Gulf littoral countries provided the Iraqi dictator with all kinds of financial and logistical support.
The amount of financial assistance that these countries granted Saddam during the eight-year war is estimated to be 180 billion dollars, he added.
Islamic Republic of Iran, however, has overlooked their mistakes.
He said Ahmadinejad attended the Doha summit to assure PGCC states that Iran’s nuclear activities will not create any problems for them, and also discuss the security problems due to the presence of foreign forces in the region.
He said that PGCC member states should also assure Iran that foreign troops wouldn’t threaten the security of Iran and Persian Gulf.
Noting that another main issue on the agenda of the summit was the three Iranian islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, he maintained that Iran should reiterate its full sovereignty over the three islands and halt the raising of the issue in the future meetings.
He then pointed out that Ahmadinejad went to Qatar to try to establish a new security bloc in the Persian Gulf.
Mehr also sought the views of Middle Eastern affairs expert Hossein Ruyvaran who believed that Ahmadinejad’s attendance at the PGCC meeting would foil the plot to isolate Iran.
“The fact that the Iranian president is participating in the event is positive and noteworthy, because the enemy is trying to show Iran as an isolated country.”
He then stated that Iran’s relations with the Persian Gulf littoral states are so profound that Western countries cannot cut them off.
Iran’s nuclear case and addressing the issue of foreign powers’ military bases in regional states could be on the agenda of the summit, Ruyvaran predicted, adding that although the possibility of waging a war against Iran is very low, Iran’s close ties with regional states can reduce this probability.
Meanwhile an international affairs expert assessed the participation of Iran’s highest executive official in the Doha summit as a considerable development in Iran’s relations with the littoral states.
Sabah Zanganeh believed that although attending any meetings at any level is both beneficial and necessary for expanding regional ties, but the main issue in such meetings is that Iran could take the initiative.
If Iran fails to do so, the opportunity to serve the national interests could turn into a situation to safeguard other powers’ interests.
Pointing to the attendance of the most of PGCC member states at the Annapolis peace conference, Zanganeh said that meetings on the sidelines of the summit could be a good opportunity to hear their justification for participating in the conference.
EK/ END MN