Iran says the United States is Israel’s partner in crime in the bloody war on the besieged Gaza Strip, slamming Washington for holding international peace hostage.
Speaking at a weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani pointed out that the US is not a neutral government about the Palestinian crisis.
“During the current developments, the US has shown that it is standing by the occupying regime with all its strength. The United States is practically part of the war, not part of the solution,” he said.
Kan’ani lashed out at Washington for preventing the use of the UN’s capacity to end the Israeli acts of genocide in Gaza.
“It is a source of regret that the United States has taken the Security Council and international peace hostage by using its power,” he added.
The Iranian diplomat further said the US and certain Western regimes must be held accountable for giving free rein to the Tel Aviv regime to commit atrocities against the people of Gaza.
“The Zionists’ barbaric acts against the Palestinian people cannot be counted, and this new age genocide is taking place daily before the eyes of the world with the support of several Western regimes, especially the United States,” he noted.
‘Anti-Iran claims meant to divert public attention from US conduct’
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Baghdad amid a surge in attacks targeting American military bases in Iraq and Syria. Blinken was seen wearing a bulletproof vest at Baghdad’s international airport.
Speaking to reporters in the Iraqi capital, Blinken claimed the attacks on US forces are coming from groups “that are aligned with Iran”.
“We’re not looking for conflict with Iran. We’ve made that very clear. But we’ll do what’s necessary to protect our personnel,” he said.
Kan’ani said that Blinken’s anti-Iran accusations are part of the US’s efforts to divert public opinions from what it is doing.
Resistance groups are independent and make their own decisions, he asserted, adding, “Iran does not boss around its friends in the region.”
The anti-American actions in the region are all rooted in the US government’s policies towards the regional nations, the spokesman said.
“If they behaved properly toward regional nations, their state secretary would not have to enter and leave Baghdad with a bulletproof vest.”
Nuclear threat caused by Israel’s ‘frustration’ with resistance
Referring to a recent threat by an Israeli minister to nuke Gaza, Kan’ani said that it shows Tel Aviv’s “frustration” in the face of the Palestinian resistance.
The threat also indicates that “the Zionist regime knows no limits to its war crimes and does not abide by any international law and rule,” he argued.
In a recent interview, Israel’s so-called heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu said Tel Aviv has the option of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip.
“This is one of the possibilities,” Amichai Eliyahu said during an interview with Radio Kol Berama when asked whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on the strip.
He also said explicitly that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”
At least 9,922 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the start of the occupying regime’s war on Gaza on October 7.
