ISLAMABAD: Iranian president Akbar Hashmi Rafsanjani recently said his country had a ‘complaint’ against the United Nations for not implementing the resolutions on Kashmir.

Addressing a joint session of Pakistan Parliament, Rafsanjani said Teheran shared Islamabad’s concern over the Kashmir issue and felt ‘this is an Islamic problem.’

Rafsanjani lashed out of the ‘western powers’ for strengthening Israel militarily and, at the same time, denying both Iran and Pakistan the defence hardware for which the two countries had made payments,

Rafsanjani did not make any direct reference to the United States but felt that Islamabad was being denied military assistance over Suspicion about its nuclear program while Iran was being refused defence equipment on the charge that it was ‘spread fundamental Rafsanjani, who arrived Sept.6 on a four-day visit to Pakistan, told the joint sitting that the ‘threats are directed towards us (Iran and Pakistan). The excuses are different but the realities the same,’

During his 25-minute speech in Persian, Rafsanjani said the western powers did not want Pakistan to be converted into an economic power with self-reliance in the field of defence. The same was the case with Iran, he said. In his speech, Sharif reiterated

Pakistan’s stand on UN resolutions on Kashmir On the Palestinian problem, Rafsanjani said his country was concemed that the process of negotiation could lead to giving Palestine away to the Zionists.

The Iranian leader told the joint session that Teheran and Islamabad had no differences over Afghanistan and that both countries wanted to extend help to that country to put an end to fighting as well as give humanistic an help. Declaring that Iran had only humanitarian interest so far as Afghanistan was concerned, Rafsanjani said Teheran and Islamabad should not allow what was happening in Afghanistan, He felt it would take at least 20 years of hard work to reconstruct war-ravaged Afghanistan,

Rafsanjani called for closer between Pakistan and Iran to further strengthen Islamic world and said had Pakistan done what it was doing today 20 years ago, the country would have been self-reliant in defence and other fields,

He also castigated those who tried to create differences among Shia and Sunni sects and said ‘t is the Islamic world which can stand up the domineering western powers’ in the wake of the collapse of communism.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 18, 1992