TEHRAN (Tasnim) � Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, said the wars in the region have been waged to serve the interests of the Western arms industry.

"There should be a war so that arms manufacturers can sell their weapons," Rahim Safavi said in a Sunday gathering of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel in the city of Isfahan, central Iran.

He made the remarks in reference to the increasing trend of arms sale to Persian Gulf littoral states, mainly by Western countries.

"In the past few years, over hundreds of billions of dollars of arms have been sold to Arab countries," Rahim Safavi stressed, adding that Saudi Arabia has purchased the largest share of weapons, mostly manufactured by the US and Israel.

He further referred to "domination over oil resources of Middle Eastern countries" as another major reason behind the wars in the region, saying that Western countries "take their (the regional states') oil and sell them arms."

In similar remarks on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at certain countries for fanning the flames of wars in the Middle East region in line with the interests of their arms industry.

Rouhani regretted that some countries pave the grounds for selling their weapons in a bid to achieve economic growth in their countries.

"Should the world industry thrive in this way? Should the slaughter of people in Baghdad, Damascus, and Sana'a be the price for the employment and activity of weapons manufacturing factories?" the Iranian president asked.

Arms sales to the top five purchasers in the region - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt and Iraq � is expected to surge this year to more than $18bln, up from $12bln last year. Among the systems being purchased are jet fighters, missiles, armored vehicles, drones and helicopters.

The scale of the arms race was revealed this year in reports published by IHS Jane�s Global Defense Trade Report and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). They showed how Saudi Arabia had become the world�s largest importer of weapons and fourth largest military spender and that other Middle East states were sharply increasing their arms purchases.

By Tasnim News Agency