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May-26-2009 07:06printcommentsVideo

Presidents of Iran, Afghanistan & Pakistan Hope to Stabilize Mideast

The presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday signed a joint statement dubbed the "Tehran Statement", at the end of their trilateral summit on regional developments.

Salem-News.com
Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan at the weekend summit. Courtesy: Euro News

(SALEM, Ore.) - After all of the political bashing and essentially unfounded accusations of nuclear weapon development, it probably seems unlikely to many Americans that Iran would be the country to bring stability to the Middle east.

Just tonight on one of his last television shows, Jay Leno referred to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a person who wants to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth" and who "denies the Holocaust" and while Leno is all about making people laugh, his political jabs seem to reinforce western media's position with regard to truth, or a lack of it.

The historic meeting between Ahmadinejad, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, held Sunday, saw discussion of collective trilateral efforts to fight extremism, Islamism and terrorism in the region.

At the trilateral summit in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said, "We have a common enemy and the duty to fight this enemy and build a secure future - otherwise the future generations would not forgive us."

The dominating thought behind the meeting of presidents appears to be the simple idea that they can take care of problems within their borders much more effectively without occupying, Coalition forces.

While showing a potential willingness to work with the Obama Administration, Ahmadinejad emphasized that drug trafficking problems in the joint border areas of the three states, along Iran's southeast - the Golden Triangle, are more difficult because of the foreign military presence.

Monsters and Critics reports that Tehran accuses the U.S. of promoting, rather than fighting terrorism, by implementing policies in the region that are considered ineffective.

In dealing with Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai, Ahmadinejad discussed the latest tensions caused by Taliban Islamist milita.

"I believe that a trilateral cooperation could solve the dilemma in a more effective way that unilateral or bilateral approaches," Ahmadinejad said.

Karzai appeared to agree, also noting that the spread of terrorism and Islamism have strained potential economic cooperation between the three nations.

"It is not too late to tackle the problems caused by extremism," the Afghan President said, adding that promoting cooperation among the three states would eventually lead to a solution.

Zardari voiced support by reminding those attending the summit that there is no way around the region's geopolitical realities.

"We are going through a difficult time and should not stand idle and have to think of the future generation to live in peace and dignity," Zardari said through an interpreter.

The date of the next meeting will be announced, and officials with the summit say they see the security talks continuing at ministerial level in Islamabad.

They also said that a prime focus of the next meeting will involve efforts to reduce drug trafficking, which is reported to be one of the main funding sources for the Taliban.

The Qatar News Agency issued this official statement in Tehran Sunday:

Presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday signed a joint statement dubbed as "Tehran Statement", at the end of their trilateral summit on regional developments. The statement, signed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Hamed Karzai of Afghanistan, focussed on expansion of security, political and economic cooperation among the three neighboring states. According to Iranian News Agency (IRNA), part of the Tehran statement calls for expansion of trilateral energy cooperation."

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Special thanks to monstersandcritics.com

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com




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