He said the support was part of Iran’s commitment in the region to assist its neighbours in fighting occupation, and he accused the US, the West and Israel of contradicting the values of freedom and democracy.

“They are freedom fighters fighting to defend their country and independence, that is not terrorism,” he said about Hamas and Hezbollah.

Larijani, who is on a two-day official visit to Bahrain, also accused the US of trying to incite border and sectarian conflict among the countries of the region to use it as an excuse to increase military sales for what he said was an effort to retake the oil sales revenues.

He reiterated Iran’s call to neighbouring Gulf states not to allow US and Western military bases to be erected on their soil, insisting that Iran was never a threat to its neighbours.

“It was the Americans who encouraged Saddam to attack Iran and despite some of the regional countries’ support for him we never tried to seek revenge,” Larijani said. “We have repeatedly expressed our readiness to sign any security and economic agreements with our neighbours.”

The former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator also said that the ties between Tehran and Damascus were strategic, and downplayed any impact that the indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiations might have.

“Despite Israeli talk of peace they continue to build settlements and none of their alleged peace efforts have been achieved. The real problem is with the Zionist entity because its existence depends on creating conflict in the region,” he said.

In an interview appearing earlier in the Al Wasat newspaper, Larijani chided US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a personal manner, referring to her not having had children.

“The West needs to reconsider what they say. The top US diplomat Condoleezza Rice, during the Israeli aggression against Lebanon which lasted 33 days, described the war as ‘the birth pangs of a new Middle East’,” Larijani was quoted as saying by Al Wasat.

“As a woman who did not try the experience of pregnancy she seems to not have known that a birth needs longer time than that,” he said.

Meanwhile the Saudi daily Al Watan reported that Larijani was due to travel to Iraq and Lebanon in the next few days.

Larijani will convey messages from Iraqi Ayatollah Ali Sistani to Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the daily quoted unnamed sources from Iran as saying.

The sources said that the letter carried by Larijani reveals Sistani’s position on the security agreement between Iraq and the US.

The report on the visit coincided with one published by the Iraqi website Almalaf yesterday that Nasrallah was poisoned last week and that his life was saved by Iranian doctors who were rushed to Lebanon to treat him.

The website quoted diplomatic sources in Beirut as saying that a particularly poisonous chemical substance was used against the Shia militia leader.

His medical condition was apparently critical for a number of days, until the Iranian doctors arrived and managed to save his life.