Pakistani columnist urges West to change hostile policy towards Iran

A well-known Pakistani columnist underscored the key role that Tehran plays in settling the regional and international crisis, and called on the Western states to change their hostile policy towards Iran. Orya Maqbool Jan said on Friday that Iran, as the rotating president of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) can play a major role in world politics. “They (the Western states) must accept Iran’s basic rights and stop putting unjustified pressure on the Islamic Republic,” Maqbool stresses while pointing to the West's hostile policies towards Tehran in the past decades, the Islamic republic news agency reported. Maqbool Jan is a renowned Pakistani columnist and poet, who writes Urdu columns. He has received numerous national awards, including the best Urdu columnist in 2004. Early in August, an experienced Indian journalist underscored Iran's vital role in settling regional crises and establishing peace and tranquility in the region. Miss Arti Bali, the Sr. International Affairs correspondent of the Sahara India Media told the Islamic republic news agency that Iran is a stabilizing factor in the region, and naturally, will play an important role in normalizing and stabilizing the situation in the region. Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. The Islamic Republic says that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.