Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has underscored Iran's critical role in fighting regional terrorism, dismissing US and Saudi charges that Tehran's is playing a ‘destabilizing role’ in the strategic region.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is the most powerful country in the region to have fought against terrorism and this is a fact well known to all concerned nations and their authorities," IRNA quoted him as saying on Sunday.
If it weren't for Iran's advisory assistance to the anti-terror campaign, other countries in the region and beyond would have been exposed as easy targets, he said.
Iran denies allegations that it is trying to destabilize the Middle East -- charges leveled by the United States and its regional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel.
It argues that it intervened in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria upon the official requests from their governments to provide military advice in their fight against the so-called Islamic State terror group.
Iran’s consultative missions were instrumental in dislodging the IS militants from the two war-ravaged Arab countries in November and end their three-year reign of death and destruction.
"[The Saudis] were the creators of Taliban, al-Qaeda and Daesh [Arabic acronym for IS] in Iraq and Syria. They have provided financial, diplomatic and logistical backing to these terrorist outfits," Rahmani Fazli recalled, citing Trump's remarks on his campaign trail in 2016.
"In the run-up to the US presidential election, Trump described Saudi Arabia as the biggest patron of Daesh, saying it must be confronted. But he altered his
stance after a trip to Saudi Arabia where he secured multi-billion-dollar contracts."
Tensions between Tehran and Riyadh culminated in a rupture in bilateral diplomatic ties in January 2016. The two powers back opposing sides in the conflicts across the region.
Petrodollars from Saudi Arabia and its allies, like the UAE, funded attacks in the past by major terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, against the US and other western countries over the past decades.
Despite his initial hard stance on Riyadh during his election campaign, Trump has turned a blind eye on the oil kingdom's visible role in the 9/11 terror attacks and backtracked on a promise to hold Riyadh to account for its role behind the birth of IS.
He even went so far as to sign arms deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars with the Saudi regime during his maiden trip to the country in May 2017.
However, Trump has more recently criticized Saudi rulers as freeloaders, threatening them with economic boycott if they do not contribute more resources to the war on terror.
