Defense minister:

Israel’s attempts to form anti-Iran coalition futile

Rasa - Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan has stressed that the Israeli regime’s efforts to set up a coalition against the Islamic Republic will result in failure.

News ID: 427569

Date: 21 February 2017 - 23:16

RNA - “Desperate bids by this regime (Israel) to form a coalition against Iran will have no result and will not make Iran give up [its support for] the Palestinian cause and the liberation of Jerusalem al-Quds,” Dehqan said on Tuesday.

The Iranian defense minister made the remarks in reaction to recent claims by both the Israeli minister for military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, and US Vice President Mike Pence against Tehran.

In their separate addresses to the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Germany, Lieberman and Pence claimed that Iran was a supporter of “terrorism” and constituted the “main threat” to the region. They also attacked the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, calling for an international push against the Islamic Republic.

The new vice president echoed his boss's hostile rhetoric, claiming that the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers, including the US, had given Iran “additional resources” to “destabilize” the region.

Dehqan, however, rejected the allegations and said, “The entire world has acknowledged that terrorism and the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group are currently the biggest threats to regional and international security.”

He said US President Donald Trump has also confirmed that the former administration of President Barack Obama had founded the Daesh terrorist group in the Middle East.

Now the world must judge whether Iran, which has fully engaged in a war against terrorism and is itself a victim of this vicious phenomenon, can be regarded as a threat, Dehqan said.

“Nations in the world and the region, particularly the Palestinian people, will never forget the brutal and inhumane crimes of the [Israeli] regime over the past 60 years and regard this regime as the main reason behind war, insecurity, terror and crimes in the region,” Dehqan said.

He urged the new US administration to focus on the chaotic situation in the US and instead of leveling accusations against others and playing a blame game, stop implementing policies, which led to the creation of Daesh as well as insecurity and war in the region and across the world.

The Israeli regime is widely viewed as a staunch supporter of the militant groups operating in Syria to topple its government.

Iran, meanwhile, has been providing military advisory support to both Iraq and Syria in their campaign against terrorism at the request of the two countries’ governments.

The Islamic Republic was among the first countries to help Iraq when the Daesh terrorist group unleashed a campaign of death and destruction in the northern and western parts of the Arab country in 2014.

Iran has also played a significant role in the Syrian military’s gains against the terrorists.

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