US concern for regional security ‘ironic’: Iran
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has lambasted as “blatant hypocrisy” Washington’s professed concern about West Asia’s security given its unflinching support for Israel’s genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Nasser Kanaani made the remarks in a statement on Wednesday in response to recent comments by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who said Washington is in talks with other countries about the formation of a task force in the Red Sea to protect maritime security in the region, Press TV reported.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have attacked and seized a number of Israeli-owned vessels and Israeli-affiliated tankers off the country’s coasts in the Red Sea, in reprisal for the regime’s US-backed war against Palestinians in Gaza.
“Contrary to US officials’ claims, the military presence of that country in the region’s lands and waters has never been a source of security, and the US government, with its illegal plots and interventions, has pursued the security and illegitimate interests of the Zionist regime at the cost of destabilizing regional countries and violating the rights of the Palestinian nation,” Kanaani said.
He stressed that the responsibility of providing security in West Asia lies with the regional countries, and can only be achieved through collective cooperation of regional countries, without foreign intervention.
In another statement on Wednesday, Kanaani dismissed as “unacceptable” some paragraphs of the final communiqué of the 44th meeting of the heads of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Doha, Qatar, concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The council’s leaders reiterated previous claims that the three Iranian islands of Greater and Lesser Tunbs, and Abu Musa belong to the United Arab Emirates, supporting the UAE’s sovereignty rights over the three Persian Gulf islands.