(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif, ruffled by the latest Charlie Hebdo cartoons, said yesterday that serious dialogue with the West would be easier if it respected Muslim sensitivities.
"We believe that sanctities need to be respected and unless we learn to respect one another it will be very difficult in a world of different views and different cultures and civilisations," Zarif said.
"We won't be able to engage in a serious dialogue if we start disrespecting each other's values and sanctities," Zarif said. "And I think we would have a much safer, much more prudent world if we were to engage in serious dialogue, serious debate about our differences," he added. "Then we will find out that what binds us together is far greater than that what divides us."
The minister added that the world was "now faced with very serious problems of extremism not only in the Middle East but unfortunately in Europe. You've seen demonstrations here in Europe which are extremely dangerous and we need to be able to deal with that".
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad urged states fighting terrorism to share intelligence, saying European policies were responsible for attacks by Islamist gunmen in France last week. "There should be ... an exchange of information between the countries concerned with fighting terrorism," Assad said. "We told the West: 'You cannot support terrorism and provide a political umbrella for it because that will reflect on your countries and nations,'" Assad said.
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