Iranian FM: Soul-searching needed to fight extremism

The war on extremism is a global one, and finding solutions requires “a lot of soul-searching here in Europe,” says Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif says the most important first step is to figure out why some are attracted to “perverted ideologies of demigods who are financed by people looking for short-term gain at the expense of others.”

Speaking during the opening of a two-day conference on conflict mediation in the Norwegian capital, Zarif stresses that it is not only a problem for the Middle East. He says some of those “who are beheading innocent human beings in Syria and Iraq (…) speak French and English with a perfect accent.”

“We need to look at economic deprivation. We need to look at promoting extremism. We need to look at political solutions to the problems and we also need to look at the underlying problems in our region,” Zarif says.

— AP