Iran to EU: Understand meaning of ‘threat,’ ‘intl. peace, security’ before accusing Tehran

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has advised the European Union to understand the meaning of such concepts as “threat” and “international peace and security” before accusing the Islamic Republic of menacing the international community and posing a danger to world peace and security.

Spokesman Esmail Baghaei made the remarks on Wednesday in response to claims that had been made earlier by the EU’s new foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and her spokesperson concerning the country’s human rights record and nuclear energy program among other things.

He emphasized that the bloc’s accusations against the Islamic Republic came while the main and permanent threat to global peace and security was the apartheid and occupying Israeli regime.

Baghaei underlined that the regime possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and had committed heinous international crimes, including taking the lives of over 60,000 innocent people across the Gaza Strip, where Tel Aviv has been waging a genocidal war, and elsewhere in just 15 months.

The official also roundly rejected the EU’s claims about Iran’s “involvement” in Ukraine’s crisis, including its allegations of the Islamic Republic’s providing drones and missiles to Russia.

He stressed that the Iran bore no connection to the crisis and that the Islamic Republic had always emphasized the necessity of ending warfare and using diplomacy to resolve disputes.

Deflecting blame and pointing fingers at others could not help resolve the crises that have been caused by Europe's own wrongful policies, Baghaei added.

He was apparently referring to the bloc’s staunch support for Kiev’s membership in the Western military alliance of NATO, despite Moscow’s stiff opposition to the prospect, and its warnings against the alliance’s trying to move closer to Russia’s borders.

The spokesman also denounced the EU’s claims about Iran’s alleged “support for terrorism.”

He noted that the Union had to rather understand that when some of its most important members openly hosted terrorist groups and elements, they lacked the moral status to accuse others.

Baghaei was pointing to some European states, such as Germany and France’s open patronage of the US- and Israeli-backed anti-Iran terrorist group of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has seen the countries’ openly hosting the group’s members and providing them with safe passage, despite its having murdered thousands of innocent Iranian civilians and officials.

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He further countered the Union’s ongoing allegations of diversion against Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.

Baghaei noted that the European Union had to remember instead that it had failed to demonstrate the necessary will and independence to preserve the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world countries, including the United States, the UK, France, and Germany.

According to the official, although, the EU served as one of the parties that founded the deal, it effectively failed to fulfill its contractual commitments following the US’s illegal and unilateral withdrawal from it in 2018.

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Iran asserts that it has never acted as the party to leave the negotiation table due to its confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear energy program.

The European trio had vowed to try to return Washington to the accord besides living up to their own commitments under the deal. They, however, stopped short of doing either, while ramping up even more illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Baghaei defined the intrusive approach that had been adopted by the bloc that was witnessed by the European officials’ remarks, as interference in other countries' internal affairs under various pretexts, including human rights, and emphasized that human rights were a valuable human heritage that was not to be used towards meddling.

The spokesman also emphasized that if the European Union wished to play an effective and constructive role in the international arena, it had to rather adopt a realistic approach based on justice, respect for the rights of other nations, and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.

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