West's blunders turned Mideast into terrorists' haven: Iran

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Thursday said the "strategic blunders" of the West in the Middle East have turned the region into a haven for terrorists and extremists.

Declaring extremism a global issue, Rouhani made the remarks while delivering a strong call from the podium of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) for a united world response to the scourge.

"The extremists of the world have found each other and have put out the call: 'extremists of the world unite.' But are we united against the extremists?", Xinhua quoted Rouhani as saying as he asked the leaders from 193 countries on the second day of the Assembly's annual general debate.

Although extremists have flowed into the Middle East from all around the world, lacking a single language, skin colour or nationality, they have a single goal, which is the destruction of civilisation, giving rise to Islamophobia and creating a fertile ground for further intervention of foreign forces in the region, he said.

"The pain is made greater when these terrorists spill blood in the name of religion and behead in the name of Islam," he declared. "I am astonished that these murderous groups call themselves Islamic. What is more astonishing is that the Western media, in line with them, repeats this false claim, which provokes the hatred of all Muslims."

"The strategic blunders of the West in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucuses have turned these parts of the world into a haven for terrorists and extremists," Rouhani pointed out, saying military aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and improper interference in the developments in Syria are clear examples of the "erroneous strategic approach in the Middle East".

The experience of creation of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and modern extremist groups have demonstrated that "one cannot use extremist groups to counter an opposing state and remain impervious to the consequences of rising extremism," Rouhani said, adding the "repetition of these mistakes despite many costly experiences is perplexing".

"Democracy is not an export product that can be commercially imported from the West to the East," he said.