Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has slammed the United States’ “sheer hypocrisy” for seeking to stop Iran’s defensive missile program while flooding the Middle East region with all kinds of weapons.
Taking to his official Twitter account on Monday, Zarif said the pressure put on Iran by the West to dismantle its missile program comes at a time when the US and major European countries encourage their allies in the Middle East to buy more weapons.
“Customer Service’ pledge by US/E3 arms producers: Buy our weapons & our governments will provide after-sales support by pressuring your neighbor to dismantle its defenses,” he said.
The Iranian top diplomat added that Washington and its European allies were whining about Iran’s defensive missile program while pouring hundreds of billions of dollars of arms into the region.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on December 14 appeared in a staged show in front of a large and charred tube that she claimed was “concrete evidence” that Iran was providing missiles to Yemeni forces fighting against Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression on their country.
Responding to Haley’s allegation, Iran’s UN mission categorically dismissed as “unfounded” her claim that a missile fired at Saudi Arabia from Yemen was supplied by the Islamic Republic.
On November 4, a missile fired from Yemen targeted the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.
The Houthi movement, which has been fighting back a Saudi aggression, said it had fired the missile but the Riyadh regime was quick to point the finger at Iran.
Tehran rejected the allegations as “provocative and baseless,” saying the Yemenis had shown an “independent” reaction to the Saudi bombing campaign on their country.
The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in January dismissed the allegations leveled by the US and its allies about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces.
“Missiles fired at Saudi Arabia belong to Yemen which have been overhauled and their range have been increased,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said.
Later in February, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi once again rejected the missile allegations against the Islamic Republic, saying such claims are lies and a foolish scenario.
“Iran’s missile program is for defensive and deterrent [purposes] and claims about the dispatch of missiles to Yemen despite the all-out blockade on this country are lies and a foolish scenario designed to exonerate the aggressors,” Qassemi said.
About 14,000 people have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen in March 2015. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.
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