Spox says Zarif’s remarks on Israel in line with Iran’s policies

Bahram Ghasemi on Monday censured some media outlets for twisting the foreign minister’s remarks about Israel, stressing that Zarif’s response to a “trick question” by French weekly news magazine Le Point did not run counter to Iran’s anti-Israel policies.

“What Zarif said in his interview with Le Point about the Zionist regime’s annihilation was the repeat and exact utterance of the remarks by Imam Khomeini and Leader, who said that Israel would cease to exist in 25 years,” Ghasemi explained.

He went on to add, “in his response to the trick question by the French journalist, Dr. Zarif, instead of taking on a defensive stance, pointed to the differences between Netanyahu’s remarks and Iran’s position.”

Ghasemi was referring to Zarif’s response in which he noted the Israeli premier’s remarks at the regime’s secretive Dimona nuclear weapons facility, from where he threatened Iran with a nuclear attack.

“Zarif said Netanyahu did not say ‘Iran must be destroyed’, rather he said ‘we will destroy Iran’,” Ghasemi explained. “Therefore, Zarif established the difference in Iran’s realistic outlook and the aggressive outlook of the Zionist regime, and when the journalist tried once again to push Zarif into a defensive stance by mentioning Mr. Ahmadinejad, Zarif followed the same line of logic that we have never said that Iran would destroy Israel, that what Mr. Ahmadinejad said was the repeat of Imam Khomeini’s remark that Israel’s policies and behaviors will ultimately lead to its destruction.”

Ghasemi further stressed that Zarif’s remarks did not run counter to Iran’s policies.

On Dec. 18, Foreign Minister Zarif had reacted to Netanyahu’s anti-Iran threats by writing in a tweet that “First, Netanyahu stands next to nuclear BOMB factory and threatens Iran with annihilation. Now, he openly boasts about his “OFFENSIVE" missiles that can reach anywhere.”

Following the threat, Tehran wrote to the United Nations, calling on the world body to condemn Israel and bring the regime’s atomic weapons program under its supervision.

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