Zarif: Iran keen on friendly ties with neighboring states

He made the remarks in a meeting with members of French Senate Committee on Foreign Policy, Defense and Armed Forces.

Zarif expressed concern about deterioration of human rights situation in Bahrain and said that the fault with the Bahraini leadership is that the governments of the Arab World have failed to address the political and social needs of their people.

'We cannot see the rights of the people of Bahrain are violated by a governing group and their rights are denied,' said Zarif.

'Iran seeks good relations with all the neighbors and our priority is having good regional ties and that's more important than the nuclear dispute which ended in 2014.'

'We believe that our region needs a framework for cooperation and regional dialogue. So, we offered a proposal to set up an association of dialogue in the Persian Gulf which is something you referred to as the Helsinki project.'

He said that the Islamic Republic of Iran honors international principles of respecting borders and non-interference in others' internal affairs and that's for several years that Iran put forward proposal for dialogue.

On freedom of expression in Iran, he noted that Iran is not a single-voice community and many opinions are expressed in Iran.

'We favor logical relations and good neighborly ties with the neighboring governments as the platform of Iran's foreign policy.'

He made it clear that the Arab world leadership has failed to address political and social needs of their own population.

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