RNA - “The US is to be held accountable for crimes against humanity" in Iran and Yemen, Zarif posted on Twitter referring to the US' sanctions against Iran and its support for the Saudi Arabia-led war on Yemen.
He posted the message after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier told BBC Persian, “We have provided, we have accommodated the Iranian people with our sanctions, and it’s now the Iranian government’s responsibility to make sure that they do the right thing…It’s their job to do the right thing for their people.”
“Just as with Yemen, Secretary Pompeo blames Iran for unlawful US sanctions preventing Iranians’ access to financial services for food and medicine,” Zarif said, adding, “Naturally, we will provide them for our people in spite of US efforts.”
Pompeo had, however, claimed that none of US sanctions prevented humanitarian assistance to the Iranian people.
Asked about Saudi Arabia’s role in causing thousands of casualties in the impoverished country, Pompeo had alleged, “The Saudis have provided millions and millions of dollars of humanitarian relief.”
Pompeo's claim of Saudi help to Yemen led to another tweet of Zarif who wrote, “You know what Secretary Pompeo? It's the Yemenis themselves who're responsible for famine they're facing. They should've simply allowed your butcher clients -who spend billions on bombing school buses & 'millions to mitigate this risk'-- to annihilate them without resisting.”
In his interview with BBC Persian, Pompeo had claimed that “the challenge in Yemen is in large part the responsibility of the Iranian leadership,” repeating Washington’s allegation against Tehran of arming Yemen’s popular fighters, which the Islamic Republic roundly denies.
The Saudi-led coalition has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 20,000 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.
Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia's deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.
Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people in need and is seeing a spike in needs, fueled by ongoing conflict, a collapsing economy and diminished social services and livelihoods.
A UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets.
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