American Herald Tribune- "We don�t see the situation in our region as a winning or losing battle. It�s a situation where the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq has led everybody to lose. Because we believe that the situation in today�s world is so interconnected that we cannot have winners and losers; we either win together or lose together,� Zarif told The National Interest.
Zarif also said thatShias, Sunnis and�Kurds�are all important segment of Iraqi society with whom�Iran�needs to have relations.
�Iran has rushed to the aid of the Iraqis, not just the Shias, but everybody. For us, the Shias, the Sunnis, the Kurds�all of them are an important segment of Iraqi society with whom we need to have relations.�
Citing an example of Iran�s help to Iraqis when�Daesh invaded Iraq in 2014, the foreign minister said, �We went to the support of the Kurds: when they had been invaded by ISIS, we were the first to go to Erbil to secure it and to rescue it, basically, from a Daesh occupation.�
He added there are certain countries in the Middle East who have been �consistently� supporting terrorism.
�You have countries in the region who have consistently supported extremists� Some countries consistently supported the wrong groups�these are the same countries from whose nationals, almost 94 percent of those engaged in acts of terror, came�so we are talking about a consistent record on their side and a consistent record on the Iranian side.�
He added that Iran does not seek to exclude�Saudi Arabia�from the security calculus of the Middle East region.
�We believe that Saudi Arabia is an important part of that security, as we believe that other countries in the region should be an important part of that security understanding.�