President of the Arab Parliament, Ahmed Al Jarwan praised the Saudi initiative to assemble an Islamic military coalition to fight terrorism.  Al-Jarwan told Asharq Al-Awsat, on Wednesday, “This initiative comes at a very critical time to confront challenges and risks threatening the Arabian region, and defending all regions from the dangers of terrorism”. He added “the Saudi initiative is to guard Arab and Islamic integrity; everyone has to understand that the other’s promotion of affixing terrorism to Islam is a grave mistake”.

Al Jarwan clarified “the Islamic coalition sends a message to the whole global community that all efforts are aiming to block this phenomenon which has spread everywhere”.  He also said “the coalition against terrorism was a demand of the people that was realized by wise Saudi leadership and leaderships of the rest of Islamic countries, which have succeeded in unifying the ranks of Islam and Muslims against this dark and devastating phenomenon”.

He also highlighted the importance of the establishment of the Riyadh operation office to take responsibility for arranging a unified Islamic force against all forms of terrorism, he stressed “the Islamic coalition’s policy for fighting terrorism on all levels: military, ideology, and media is one of the best was to abolish terrorism.” 

Touching on Iran abstaining from joining this coalition, and what has been reported by some American newspapers that this coalition was fueling Sunni world leadership against the Shia in Iran, Al Jarwan clarified “We disapprove with media when it comes to the necessity of stopping the escalation of files talking around Sunnis and Shia, because we are both partners and brothers; but at the same time we do not deny that some in Iran are trying to benefit from agitating sectarian conflict in the region in the service of specific benefits. Nevertheless we as an Arab country insist that the Shia and Sunni are brothers, and thus there are no fears regarding this military coalition, on the contrary, this is a combined force against the terrorism that has spread its way to Africa and East Asia”.