The chairman of the Expediency Council warned that expansion of terrorist activities poses a serious danger to the world, calling on the international community to take collective measures to stamp out the menacing phenomenon.
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made the remarks during a meeting of the council on Saturday, Fars news agency reported.
He pointed to the June 28, 1981 bombing in Tehran and said, "Iran is the first victim of terrorism in the world."
In the incident, a powerful bomb went off at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in Tehran, while a meeting of the party leaders was in progress, killing over seventy leading officials of the Islamic Republic, including chief justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq terrorist group was behind the attack.
Rafsanjani also expressed regret over the recent terrorist attacks committed by the so-called Islamic State terrorist group in Tunisia and Kuwait.
A suicide bomber killed 27 people when he blew himself up inside a packed Shia Muslim mosque in Kuwait city during Friday prayers and a gunman disguised as a tourist opened fire at a Tunisian hotel on Friday with a rifle he had hidden in an umbrella, killing 39 people. Both attacks were claimed by Islamic State.
In addition, the senior politician said the work of formulating general policies on the environment is underway in the Expediency Council and said, "Today the menace of environmental destruction is no less than terrorism," adding that the destruction of natural resources is silently affecting the globe even worse than terrorism.
Rafsanjani said environmental challenges such as global warming that have left numerous human casualties in countries such as India have resulted from warming ocean, climate change and pollution of water, soil and air.
He warned of the destruction of soil and water resources and forests as well as air and other environment pollutions in Iran, attributing them to inappropriate and unfettered exploitation of resources.
He called for preservation of national resources, as they also belong to the "future generations."
In conclusion, the official hoped that by finalizing general policies on the environment, effective measures could be taken to mitigate environmental degradation.
