US condemns Iranian President
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday condemned statements made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in which he called for the destruction of the state of Israel.
On Saturday, addressing what Tehran billed as the 32nd International Islamic Unity Conference, Rouhani denounced Israel and the US.
Referring to Israel, Rouhani stated, “One of the ominous effects of World War II was creating the cancerous tumor in this region.”
Rouhani also called Israel a “fake regime,” while he called on Muslims to unite against the US, instead of “rolling out red carpets for criminals.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded later that day, “Israel knows very well how to defend itself from the murderous Iranian regime.”
“Rouhani’s slander,” Netanyahu continued, “proves yet again why the nations of the world need to join in the sanctions against the Iranian terrorist regime which threatens them.”
Nouri al-Maliki, a former Prime Minister of Iraq and currently an Iraqi Vice President, who heads the State of Law Coalition which won 25 seats in the last elections, also addressed Tehran’s Islamic conference.
“The axis of resistance is represented in Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Hashd al-Shaabi [Popular Mobilization Forces], and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” Maliki said, “and they will liberate Palestine soon.”
Saddam Hussein used to hold such international conferences on a variety of issues. They included an annual “Popular Islamic Conference,” first held in April 1983, after Iraq was pushed on the defensive in its eight-year-long war with Iran.
The Baghdad conferences served as recruiting venues for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Most likely, the Iranian conferences are used by Iranian intelligence for similar purposes.
Pompeo slammed Rouhani’s statements, saying that they “inflame tensions in the region by seemingly calling for war.”
The Secretary of State also condemned Rouhani for encouraging “Muslims worldwide to unite against the US,” calling it a “dangerous and irresponsible step that will further deepen Iran’s isolation.”
On November 5, a second, much tougher round of US sanctions against Iran began, targeting its energy, finance, and shipping sectors.
On November 20, the US imposed new sanctions on what Pompeo described as “an international network by which the Iranian regime and Russia are providing millions of barrels of oil to the Assad regime,” which then transfers “millions of dollars” in payment for the oil to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, which it uses to support organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
That network, according to US officials, revolves around a Syrian businessman, Mohammad Amer al-Chwiki, who runs a Russian-based company, Global Vision Group, and who operates in concert with a state-owned Russian energy company and Iran’s Central Bank.
The new sanctions are part of the “US government’s long-term maximum pressure campaign” to counter Iran’s “influence and destabilizing regional activities,” the State Department explained. They are also part of the “effort to bring to bear on the Syrian regime the pressure necessary to help bring about a political resolution” of the conflict.
Editing by Nadia Riva