What is happening in Gaza is an “annihilation of human existence” enabled by Washington despite its claim to champion human rights across the globe, says Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs.
Ali Bagheri Kani said in an interview with Japan’s public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday that the Americans can no longer claim to be advocates of human rights whatsoever given their support for the brutal Israeli war.
“The Americans claim to advocate human rights but what is happening in Gaza today is not just a violation of human rights but annihilation of human existence,” he said. “Therefore, the Americans can no longer claim to be advocates of human rights anywhere in the world.”
“What we are witnessing in Gaza today is a full-scale genocide and a blatant crime against humanity. Israel has not launched an assault on any military targets in Gaza because there are no military targets there.”
He further said Israel’s targets in Gaza are either people’s houses, educational places, people’s places of worship, or hospitals.
“That is why a significant number of the dead are women and children,” he added.
Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 19,667 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 52,586 others.
Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.
Further expounding on the US role in the devastating war, Bagheri Kani said Washington’s support to Tel Aviv is an important factor in encouraging the occupying regime to continue and intensify its crimes in Gaza.
The Iranian diplomat also said other countries, including Japan, can stop the continuation of Israel’s crimes against the people of Gaza by exerting pressure on the US and the occupying entity, adding, “Among such measures can be a revision of the political and economic relations with the Israeli regime.”
US against rights-centeredness, only concerns self-interest
In a meeting with a number of Japanese experts and thinkers at the Islamic Republic’s Embassy in Tokyo, Bagheri Kani pointed to the US unilateralism as an impediment to the establishment of justice across the world and rebuked Washington’s concern about its own interests.
“In the current situation where the Americans dominate the world with unilateralism, they do not allow justice to be established in the world. From Iran’s perspective, ‘rights-centeredness’ is a very important keyword in the foundation of international relations, but the Americans do not accept this principle,” he said.
“They see everything through the lens of their interests. Therefore, they do not acknowledge any rights for any player in the international scene and they regard shares for others based on their interests,” he added.
Bagheri Kani also underlined that the United States’ “share-centeredness” approach in international relations cannot create lasting stability, as opposed to Iran’s “rights-centeredness” approach, which brings about multilateralism and stability.
