23/10/2008 Iranian Parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Wednesday declared that Iran was proud of its support for the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah resistances, rejecting claims that it could be considered support for 'terrorism'.
 
He said the support was part of Iran's commitment in the region to assist its neighbors in fighting occupation, and he accused the United States, the West and Israel of contradicting the values of freedom and democracy. "They are freedom fighters fighting to defend their country and independence, that is not terrorism," he said about Hamas and Hezbollah.
 
Larijani, who is on a two-day official visit to Bahrain, also accused the U.S. of trying to incite border and sectarian conflict among the countries of the region to use it as an excuse to increase military sales for what he said was an effort to re-take the oil sales revenues. He reiterated Iran's call to neighboring Gulf states not to allow U.S. and Western military bases to be erected on their soil, insisting that Iran was never a threat to its neighbors.
 
"It was the Americans who encouraged Saddam to attack Iran and despite some of the regional countries support for him we nevereza Rice in a personal manner, referring to her not having had children. "The West needs to reconsider what they say. The top U.S. diplomat Condoleezza Rice, during the Israeli aggression against Lebanon which lasted 33 days, described the war as 'the birth pangs of a new Middle East'," Larijani was quoted as saying by Al Wasat.
 
"As a woman who did not try the experience of pregnancy she seems to not have known that a birth needs longer time than that," he said. Larijani also said that of the two candidates in the U.S. presidential race, Barack Obama seemed be 'more rational' than his opponent John McCain. "The Democratic candidate Barack Obama seems to be more rational than the
Republican John McCain, but the test in deeds, not words," he said.
 
Larijani, a powerful politician with close ties to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, criticized the U.S. for exaggerating some minor issues between the countries of the region so that the differences appear to be insurmountable. He added that Iran was ready to enter into security and economic agreements with neighboring countries.
 
Meanwhile the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported that Larijani was due to travel to Iraq and Lebanon in the next few days. Larijani will convey messages from Iraqi Ayatollah Ali Sistani to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the daily quoted unnamed sources from Iran as saying. The sources said that the letter carried by Larijani reveals Sistani's position on the security agreement between Iraq and the United States.