Iran’s Zarif Likens Haley’s Speech to US Claims on Iraq’s WMD Program

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley’s remarks over the Islamic Republic’s missile support for Yemen, comparing them to US claims in 2003 that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

News ID: 67510

Date: 15 December 2017 - 13:17

“When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat...,” Zarif said on his Twitter account on Thursday night in response to anti-Tehran allegations.

During her press conference on Thursday, Haley appeared standing before parts of a ballistic missile that she claimed Iran delivered to Houthis in Yemen, who then fired it at the Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia last month.

The Iranian top diplomat likened her presentation Thursday to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claim in 2003 that Iraq possessed WMD.

Powell’s 2003 speech to the UN laid out the Bush administration’s case for a war in Iraq. Powell in 2016 called the speech “a great intelligence failure”.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Gholam Ali Khoshroo also rejected Haley’s claim as “baseless” and said the accusations are aimed at covering up the Saudi war crimes in Yemen with the US complicity.

Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by a coalition led by the Saud regime for nearly three years but Riyadh has reached none of its objectives in Yemen so far.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Over 14,000 Yemenis, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.