NEW DELHI (Sputnik) – The tensions between Tehran and Riyadh will have an adverse impact on the Syrian crisis settlement, since the Saudis will enhance both military and financial support to terrorists and will attempt to disrupt the Geneva conference, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told Sputnik.
"It has negative impact on the situation. They [the Saudis] will increase the financial and military support to the terrorists in Syria. They will prevent the Geneva conference to be successful," Muallem emphasized.
Disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran hamper the fight against terrorism and efforts to settle the Syrian conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Germany's Bild newspaper Tuesday.
The Syrian foreign minister also stressed that, while pursuing an ambitious goal of reviving the Ottoman Empire and, therefore, letting terrorists pass through Turkish territory on the way to Syria, Turkey’s leaders underestimate the possibility of the extremists’ return to the country.
"They [the Turkish authorities] opened the border to the terrorist groups coming to us from one hundred countries… He [President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] never learned the lesson that these terrorists will come back to them. And his ambition of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire, I tell you frankly it's an illusion," Muallem said.
Despite Ankara’s declared desire to fight the Daesh terrorist group, Turkey used it as a pretext to attack Kurdish militias in northern Syria and Iraq, Muallem noted.
"We used to produce five years ago around 400,000 barrels of oil, we consume inside Syria some and we export some. Now this oil is stolen by Daesh and sent to Turkey," the minister added.
According to Muallem, should Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar implement the provisions of a UN Security Council resolution seeking to cut off sources of funding for terrorist groups in Syria, the four-year-long civil war in the country would be over.
The resolution, targeting in particular the Daesh extremist group, which is prohibited in numerous countries including the United States and Russia, was adopted unanimously on December 17, 2015.
"If these neighboring countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar implement the Security Council resolution to counter terrorism, 70 percent of our crisis will be finished and the 30 percent I promise you to end them before the end of this year," Muallem stressed.
Saudi Arabia, alongside Turkey and Qatar have been repeatedly labeled by numerous experts, media outlets and NGOs as the main sponsors of terrorism, benefiting from the instability in the countries' shaken by the insurgents' activities.
Russia and the United States co-sponsored the 2253 UNSC resolution that expanded the so-called Al-Qaeda Sanctions List to include Daesh as a separate entity instead of an al-Qaeda affiliate.
