FM Zarif to E3: End Your Malign Behavior

Date: 05 December 2020 - 21:46

News ID: ۸۵۱۳۴

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif has hit back at his German counterpart over his claims about Iran’s national defense program, saying the European parties to the Iran deal should first change their own harmful behavior before lecturing the Islamic Republic.
In an interview with Spiegel magazine released on Friday, Germany’s top diplomat, Heiko Maas, spoke of what he called a "nuclear deal plus” with Iran that would also include the country’s conventional missile program and regional role.
Maas said "a return to the previous agreement will not be enough,” and that "there will have to be a kind of ‘nuclear deal plus’, which is also in our interest.”
The German minister, whose country currently holds the presidency of the European Union, said the Europeans have "clear expectations for Iran: no nuclear weapons, but also no ballistic rocket program which threatens the whole region. Iran must also play another role in the region.”
"We need this accord because we distrust Iran,” he added.
Zarif took to Twitter later in the day to lash out at the European signatories to the Iran deal — Germany, France and Britain — for their "malign behavior” in the Middle East and failure to live up to their obligations under the multilateral nuclear deal following the unilateral U.S. pullout in May 2018.
"Here’s what Heiko Maas & E3 must do before speaking about what Iran should do: Stop despicable Covid Apartheid. Honor your obligations under UNSCR2231 & stop violating JCPOA. End YOUR malign behavior in OUR region: $100B arms sales to Persian Gulf & blind support for Israel terror,” he wrote.
Iran feels betrayed by the Europeans over their failure to protect the Islamic Republic from layer after layer of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in recent years.
A European Union mechanism launched with much fanfare to facilitate payments for Iranian exports and sidestep the U.S. financial system never came to operation, leaving the Islamic Republic to its own devices to grapple with the fallout.
Along with the tweet, Zarif posted a report about Germany’s plan to include the occupying regime of Israel, and not Palestine, in a European COVID-19 vaccine distribution program, calling on Berlin to stop the "despicable” coronavirus "apartheid.”
He further urged an end to lucrative European arms sales to the repressive Persian Gulf regimes and their "blind support” for the Israeli terrorism.
Germany, France and the UK, like many other European countries, have refused to condemn the assassination top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near Tehran.
In his interview with Der Spiegel, Maas tacitly supported the assassination, even though he responded ‘no’ to a question about whether he considered assassinating an individual a "legitimate instrument.”
"In abstract terms, there may be situations where international law may allow for preventing persons from carrying out a specific action — to prevent imminent crimes such as attacks, for example. But the risk of this making the situation even more dangerous is obvious,” Maas said.