Islamic media should counter U.S. influence in region: official

The key responsibility of the Islamic media is to counter the influence of the United States in the region, Ali-Akbar Velayati, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's advisor on international affairs, said here on Sunday.

"The mercenaries are following the objectives of United States in the Islamic countries ... and the role of media is of high importance in this regard," Velayati said in the eighth General Assembly of Islamic Radios and Televisions Union (IRTVU) kicked off in Iran's capital Tehran on Sunday.

The IRTVU should reconsider its strategies and catch up with the pace of developments in the west of Asia and north of Africa, so that they "nullify the plots against the Islamic states," he said.

The IRTVU also needs to enhance the quality of its products to be able to resist the cultural and political influences of "satanic unions including the products of Hollywood and those who seek to counter Islam," Velayati said.

The western media are deaf and mute in face of crimes in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and they do not write anything against Israel and the U.S.' division plots in the Islamic states, he added.

Velayati hailed what he called the resistance of Syria and Iraq against Israel and terrorist groups, saying that after the defeat in Iraq, the United States began proxy war in Iraq.

The U.S. dream to disintegrate and divide the Islamic countries will never come true, he stressed.

Representatives from 35 countries have attended the IRTVU conference, and among them former Iraqi prime minister Nour al-Maliki and the Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi are scheduled to make speeches. Endit