A deputy Iranian defense minister has urged the formation of a great Asian coalition to counter terrorism.

�Terrorism has turned into a global phenomenon today, and has targeted Asia above all [other regions],� said Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Nasrallah Kalantari in the Sixth Xiangshan Forum in the Chinese capital, Beijing.

A great coalition among countries from the east and west of the Asian continent is required to eliminate terrorism, said the senior official in the annual security conference.
�Unfortunately, terrorism has created a lot of challenges on the international stage, and its promoters are making every effort to spread extremism, violence, chaos and insecurity across the world, particularly in the Asian continent,� Brig. Gen. Kalantari said.

He then touched upon the assistance offered to militants by sponsors of terrorism, saying, �The US and its allies in the region and [other parts of] the world, which themselves, both overtly and covertly, set the stage to breed terrorism, have no right to claim to be fighting it.�

The deputy defense chief further said Washington and its allies do not really seek to root out terrorism, saying the so-called anti-terror war they have waged in Syria and Iraq was a clear indication that whatever they do in the two Arab countries is just a �charade.�

Since late September 2014, the US, along with some of its allies, has purportedly been conducting airstrikes against Daesh extremists inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The airstrikes in Syria are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against alleged Daesh positions in Iraq, which started in August last year. Many have criticized the ineffectiveness of the raids.

Brig. Gen. Kalantari reiterated that Iran�s policy on regional crises, especially the Syrian conflict, is that those tensions could only be settled through political solutions and the enhancement of diplomatic cooperation.