Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday said US objections to Iran’s missile programme, which also came with a fresh wave of sanctions, were “rather bizarre”.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday said US objections to Iran’s missile programme, which also came with a fresh wave of sanctions, were “rather bizarre”.
“I find it rather bizarre that the United States expresses concern over the Iranian missile programme, which is defensive and does not violate any current international regulation,” Mr Zarif told an audience in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly condemned on Wednesday for the first time the January 2 attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran as “a very bad and wrong incident”.
“Like the British embassy attack before it, this was against the country (Iran) and Islam, and I didn’t like it,” he added.
Britain’s embassy in Tehran was stormed and ransacked by a mob in 2011.
The arson attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy — for which local media reports say as many as 140 people have been arrested — led to Riyadh quickly severing diplomatic ties with Tehran.
The incident occurred late at night after Saudi Arabia executed Shia cleric and activist Nimr al-Nimr, a force behind 2011 anti-government protests in the eastern province, for crimes against the kingdom.
Ayatollah Khamenei and Iranian officials lambasted Saudi Arabia over the killing.
However his remarks on Wednesday, in a speech to electoral officials ahead of the country’s parliamentary polls on February 26, underscored that the embassy attack had no sympathy from within the Islamic republic’s establishment.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani at the time said the violence was committed by “rogue elements” acting against the country’s interests.
Ayatollah Khamenei also spoke for the first time on Wednesday about the brief detention by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ naval force of 10 US Navy personnel who strayed into Iranian waters in the Gulf.
“I didn’t have an opportunity to thank them (the Revolutionary Guards). I really thank them. It was a very appropriate action,” he added.
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday accused Iran of a nearly four-decade record of “sedition, unrest and chaos,” as the international community tried to calm tensions between the regional rivals.
“Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran has established a record of spreading sedition, unrest and chaos in the region,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed senior foreign ministry official as saying.
“During the same period, the kingdom has maintained a policy of restraint in spite of having suffered — as have neighbouring countries — the consequences of Iran’s continued aggressive policies.”
