Iran Press/Middle East: Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday in the Qatari capital of Doha said that the US and its allies' pouring arms to the region and turned it to a tinderbox ready to blow up.
"The US sold $50bn worth of weapons to the region last year. Some of the countries in the region with less than a third of our population spend $87bn on military procurement," Zarif told Al Jazeera.
"Iran spent last year $16bn on all its military with almost one million people in the army. The UAE with a total population of one million spent $22bn, Saudi Arabia spent $87bn," he went on, making a comparison.
Elsewhere in his interview, Zarif referred to the presence of US and foreign naval fleet in the Persian Gulf and said that their presence never produced security.
"This is a tiny body of water and the more foreign naval vessels you have in this body of water the less secure it is for everybody. Based on experience, the presence of US and foreign naval fleet in the Persian Gulf has never produced security," he mentioned.
"We have sad memories of a US ship downing an Iranian airliner in 1988 and killing 290 passengers onboard," Zarif said referring to the US' Vincennes warship downing Iran's Airbus passenger plane in 1988.
Iranian Foreign Minister's comments came after the US said that it is going to form a military coalition in the Persian Gulf. Iran called the US coalition as a danger for the security of the region.
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