Iran FM: Trump fake evidence, bid to promote Iranophobia at UNSC

Rasa - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says US President Donald Trump is resorting to "fake evidence" to spread Iranophobia.

News ID: 436142

Date: 30 January 2018 - 04:09

RNA - "In the fake news department, Trump & Co. attempt to create an Iranphobic narrative at the UN Security Council -- through wining and dining and fake evidence provided by a warring neighbor," Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account on Monday.

He added that such efforts would only seem acceptable to "the same desperate neighbor and its accomplices in war crimes," in what was a clear reference to Saudi Arabia's anti-Iran efforts.

Zarif's comments came after the US president addressed a lunch meeting with members of the United Nations Security Council, accusing Iran once again of destabilizing the Middle East and providing Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters with ballistic missiles.

On December 14, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley presented what she claimed to be "undeniable" evidence, including the allegedly recovered pieces of a Yemeni missile, saying it proved that Iran was violating international law by giving missiles to the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The Houthis have been fighting back a Saudi-led aggression with allied Yemeni army troops and tribal fighters since March 2015.

A few days later, she said that the UN Security Council could strengthen the provisions in Resolution 2231, which was approved in July 2015 to endorse the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, or adopt a new resolution banning Tehran from all activities related to ballistic missiles.

Earlier on Monday, a senior Iranian official rejected unfounded US accusations about the Islamic Republic providing Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters with ballistic missiles, saying Washington would never achieve any success in its "puppetry" against Tehran.

"They [US officials] directly accuse Iran of meddling in Yemen while they are indirectly denying the bravery, resistance and self-sacrifice of the Yemeni nation," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said in an interview with the IRIB on Monday.

He said the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would fail to solve any problem through leveling such accusations.

847/940