Strong Response to US’ Anti-Iran Move at UNSC

Iran strongly countered US efforts to divert the United Nations Security Council's attention away from Israel and instead target the Islamic Republic.

UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo addressed a UNSC session on the situation in the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular.

Khoshroo said at the meeting, Israel's illegal occupation and aggression are at the root of all the problems facing the Middle East over the past decades, Press TV reported.

"By upbraiding all but the occupier, however, the US is trying to sweep the problem under the carpet instead of solving it," the envoy said.

Since 1948, he said, Israel has invaded regional countries on at least 14 occasions and violated at least 86 UNSC resolutions condemning its recurrent acts of aggression and occupation.

Khoshroo asserted that the Israeli regime, though, has invariably gone unpunished.

He also said Washington and Tel Aviv were indifferent toward the UN reports on the latter's inhumane policies and were trying to force those writing the reports to resign and for the reports themselves to be withdrawn.

The Iranian envoy stated that Israel was the only obstacle to the creation of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, as it has refused to join either the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Khoshroo noted that the recent accusations flying against Iran's role in the region were nothing but psychological propaganda planned by Israel and some regional countries. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, addressed the UN Security Council and complained that its monthly sessions on the Middle East had turned into "Israel-bashing sessions", while they had to focus instead on Iran.

The meetings traditionally address the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip, as well as the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and East Beit-ul-Moqaddas, where Palestinians either face regular deadly Israeli aggression or expansionist settlement activities by the regime.

Haley said the meetings should rather give primary attention to the alleged "illegal and dangerous behavior" of Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah in the region.

"Iran is using Hezbollah to advance its regional aspirations. They are working together to expand extremist ideologies in the Middle East," she claimed. "That is a threat that should be dominating our discussion at the Security Council."

"It was the US 2003 actions in the Middle East that eventually created the self-styled Islamic State terror group," Khoshroo said.

The invasion of Iraq was followed by immeasurable chaos and sectarian strife in the Arab country. The terror group used the ensuing unrest and instability to plant roots and start its campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the region in 2014.

"Interestingly enough, the very parties that destabilized the region and helped create terror groups now accuse Iran, which has invested the most effort in fighting and combating the international terror network".