Iran Condemns U.S. Blacklisting of Cuba, Yemen’s Houthis

Date: 13 January 2021 - 21:59

News ID: ۸۶۵۹۰

TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran on Wednesday denounced the U.S. State Department’s plan to designate Yemen’s Ansarullah movement as a terrorist organization.
In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the plan sums up the Trump administration’s destructive role in a disgraceful imposed war on Yemen which will bring any political and peaceful solution to a deadlock.
"From the outset of the war on Yemen, the U.S. has been the main sponsor of crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and has spared no financial and arms assistance” to the invasion, he said.
The U.S. administration and the State Department under President Donald Trump have spared no effort to fan the flames of war in Yemen and block every avenue to a political settlement of the crisis, Khatibzadeh added.
The U.S. designation will hamper humanitarian aid to the Yemeni people and obstruct the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, he said, hoping that world nations would react to the "evil” decision.
Hawkish U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo announced on Sunday that he would notify Congress of his intent to designate Ansarullah as a "foreign terrorist organization (FTO)”.
Iran also "strongly” condemned a recent move by the U.S. administration to re-designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Tehran stands by Cuba in its resistance against the U.S., Khatibzadeh said in a statement Tuesday.
He rejected U.S. accusations of Havana’s support for terrorism as "baseless”, saying Cuba is a free nation and an active member of the UN.
"No country, especially the U.S. regime, has the right to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs or to prohibit the country from establishing relations with another free country,” he said.
Khatibzadeh said the U.S. supports several terror organizations as he reiterated Iran’s resolve to develop bilateral relations with Cuba.
Cuba said on Friday it had signed an accord with Iran to transfer the technology for its most advanced coronavirus vaccine candidate and carry out last-stage clinical trials of the shot in the Islamic Republic.
The allies are both under fierce U.S. sanctions that exempt medicine yet often put foreign pharmaceutical companies off trading with them and as such they seek to be self-reliant.
Iran launched human trials of its first domestic COVID-19 vaccine candidate late last month, while Cuba has four candidates currently in human trials.
Cuba’s Finlay Vaccine Institute said late on Friday it has signed an accord with Iran’s Pasteur Institute to collaborate on testing of Soberana 2.
"This synergy will enable both countries to advance more rapidly in the immunization against the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” it said on its Twitter account.