Iran Expresses Reservations over Two-State Solution, PLO Articles of OIC Summit Declaration

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi upon his return to Tehran from Riyadh. (Iranian Presidency)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi upon his return to Tehran from Riyadh. (Iranian Presidency)
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Iran Expresses Reservations over Two-State Solution, PLO Articles of OIC Summit Declaration

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi upon his return to Tehran from Riyadh. (Iranian Presidency)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi upon his return to Tehran from Riyadh. (Iranian Presidency)

Iran expressed four reservations over the Riyadh Declaration of the Arab-Islamic summit on the war in Gaza, despite praising its tone and phrases, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani.

Iranian media quoted Kanaani as saying: "The resolution approved during the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Riyadh, despite having a strong text, has several provisions about which the Islamic Republic of Iran has always expressed reservations in the past."

Kanaani said Iran announced it has "reservations over certain provisions of the resolution, especially regarding the two-state solution, 1967 borders, and Arab peace plan," reported the official IRNA news agency.

He expressed Tehran's reservations about the Arab position in the resolution that says the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was the only legal representative of the Palestinian state.

"Iran believes that all Palestinians and Palestinian groups, including the PLO, are the representatives of the Palestinian state and have the right to fight against occupation and self-determination according to international law," he added.

Kanaani reviewed ten proposals, which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi presented in his speech before the summit.

"Most of the proposals put forward by Iran during the document negotiation have been incorporated into the resolution," he remarked.

Upon his return at Mehrabad Airport, Raisi raised Iran's reservations about the two-state solution, saying Tehran proposed a democratic solution that allows all Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews, to determine their fate.

Political adviser of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ali Shamkhani said the statement of 57 Islamic and Arab countries in Riyadh was a "necessary condition for action against crimes of Israel's fake regime, but it is not sufficient."

Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the readiness of its ground units in terms of equipment and personnel throughout the country.

IRGC Ground Force commander Mohammed Pakpour headed to the country's southwestern borders, where he was briefed on the forces’ combat and defensive readiness.

Pakpour praised the Hamas’ Al-Aqsa Flood operation, saying it dealt a significant blow to the strategic plans of the Israeli Zionist regime and was a symbol of Palestinian resistance against 75 years of oppression and massacres by the occupying forces.

IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi said Israel and the countries supporting it have been dealt a strategic defeat, adding that the “resistance front” groups are launching highly accurate missiles against Israel.



Russia Awaits Ukraine's Confirmation on Planned Exchange of Dead Fighters, Officials Say

A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces prepares to use a drone at a damaged school after a missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine Jun 2, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces prepares to use a drone at a damaged school after a missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine Jun 2, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
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Russia Awaits Ukraine's Confirmation on Planned Exchange of Dead Fighters, Officials Say

A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces prepares to use a drone at a damaged school after a missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine Jun 2, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces prepares to use a drone at a damaged school after a missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine Jun 2, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Ukraine that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Kyiv had postponed the swap.

On the front line in the war, Russia said that it had pushed into Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from Ukraine, but that there were “signals” that the process of transferring the bodies would be postponed until next week, The AP news reported.

Citing Zorin on her Telegram channel, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked whether it was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's “personal decision not to take the bodies of the Ukrainians” or whether “someone from NATO prohibited it."

Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war.

Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, led the Russian delegation. Medinsky said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, he said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came.

In response, Ukraine said that Russia was playing “dirty games” and manipulating facts.

According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn’t correspond to agreements reached on Monday.