{"id":2583,"date":"2014-09-16T09:25:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T09:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=2583"},"modified":"2014-09-16T11:39:35","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T11:39:35","slug":"iran-rejects-us-led-coalition-against-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/iran-rejects-us-led-coalition-against-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran rejects US-led coalition against IS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Iran\"<\/a>Iran said Monday it rejected a US request for its cooperation against the Islamic State as part of an international coalition whose true aim Tehran sees as regime change in Syria.
\nSeen from Tehran, which has helped both Damascus and Baghdad to confront IS advances, the coalition lacks credibility because some of its members had financed and armed the group as part of their campaign to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad.
\n\u201cRight from the start, the United States asked through its ambassador in Iraq whether we could cooperate against Daesh,\u201d Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said in a statement on his official website, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
\n\u201cI said no, because they have dirty hands,\u201d said Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state in the Islamic Republic.
\n\u201cSecretary of State (Kerry) personally asked (Iranian counterpart) Mohammad Javad Zarif and he rejected the request,\u201d said Khamenei, who was leaving hospital after what doctors said was successful prostate surgery. He accused Washington of seeking a \u201cpretext to do in Iraq and Syria what it already does in Pakistan \u2014 bomb anywhere without authorization.\u201d At the end of a Paris conference on coordinating the fight against IS, to which Iran and Syria were not invited, the United States said Monday it was opposed to military cooperation with Iran in Iraq but was open to further talks.
\n\u201cWe are not and will not coordinate militarily… There may be another opportunity on the margins in the future to discuss Iraq,\u201d US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters shortly after Khamenei\u2019s statement.
\nFor Khamenei, \u201cthe Americans are lying when they say they refused to have Iran in the alliance because from the very start we declared our opposition to such a presence.\u201d
\nKhamenei predicted the US-led coalition against IS would prove as ineffective as the so-called \u201cFriends of Syria\u201d international conferences held as a show of solidarity with anti-Assad rebels.
\n\u201cThe alliance against Syria… didn\u2019t manage to do anything, and it will be the same thing in Iraq,\u201d said Iran\u2019s leader.
\nIn Paris, the world\u2019s top diplomats pledged to support Iraq in its fight against IS militants by \u201cany means necessary,\u201d including \u201cappropriate military assistance.\u201d
\nRepresentatives from around 30 countries and international organizations, including the United States, Russia and China, took part.<\/p>\n

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