Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has slammed a statement by US President Donald Trump in which he attacked Iran to justify his continued backing for Saudi Arabia despite the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of,” the chief diplomat wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.
Trump’s statement on Saudi Arabia opened with a litany of complaints against Iran, which he used as an apparent excuse for sticking by Riyadh in spite of the recent killing in Istanbul of Khashoggi, who was critical of Saudi rulers, and the ensuing international condemnation.
“The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen,” read Trump's statement, AFP reported.
The US president then went on to accuse Tehran of trying to destabilize Iraq’s attempt at democracy, supporting terrorism and killing many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East.
Iran denies backing terrorist groups and arming Yemen’s Houthi group while accusing Saudi-backed forces of killing civilians in the war-torn Arab country. It has also contributed greatly to efforts by the Baghdad government to reverse the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group’s seizure of Iraqi territory.
Steadfast Partner
The US president, who overlooked mounting evidence of Saudi government’s involvement in the Khashoggi killing, including from his own intelligence services, vowed to stay a “steadfast partner” of Riyadh despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
He added that he has no intention to cancel military contracts with the kingdom as the $450-billion Saudi investment is expected to “create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States”.
“If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries,” he said, while calling Saudi Arabia a “great ally”.
Blamed for Everything
In his tweet, Zarif suggested that Iran gets blamed for any problem Trump can think of and mocked Trump’s unfavorable comparison of forestry management in wildfire-ravaged California and Finland.
“Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests—just like the Finns do?”
When visiting the scene of California’s devastating Camp Fire on Saturday, Trump said Finland does not have problems with forest fires like the US because, as he claimed, the president of the European nation told him “they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning”, according to Newsweek.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto responded to Trump’s unusual comment on Sunday, saying that he never discussed raking with the US leader.
“I mentioned [to] him that Finland is a land covered by forests and we also have a good monitoring system and network,” Niinisto said, adding that he recalled telling Trump, “We take care of our forests.”
