Iran brushes off Israeli allegations
Iran’s permanent representative at the UN has dismissed the recent Israeli claims about an alleged arms smuggling bid by Tehran to the Gaza Strip as an obtrusive feature of Tel Aviv’s warmongering policies and psychological propaganda campaign.
“In line with [Tel Aviv’s] warmongering policy and psychological propaganda campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Israeli ambassador [to the UN] has used the UN Security Council tribune to level unfounded allegations against Iran,” said Ambassador Mohammad Khazaei at a UN Security Council meeting on illicit cross-border trafficking on Wednesday.
“In his recent remarks, the Israeli envoy leveled unfounded allegations about Iran’s ‘arms smuggling,’ this is while the Israeli regime, through its agents, has carried out numerous crimes, including state terrorism, of which the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists is a flagrant example,” he added.
Khazaei also flatly dismissed the Israeli envoy’s accusations about Iran’s nuclear energy program.
He described Tel Aviv’s allegations against the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities as yet another attempt by Israel “to divert the global public opinion from the covert development of nuclear arsenal by the Israeli regime as well as its illegal possession of hundreds of nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction that pose a threat to the entire region in addition to international peace and security.”
During the latest UNSC meeting, Tel Aviv’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor claimed that Iran was engaged in smuggling arms to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, accusing the Islamic Republic of training and funding terrorists.
He also described the Iranian nuclear energy program as a concern that required action.
The West and the Israeli regime have been accusing Iran of seeking non-civilian diversions in its nuclear energy program.
Iran has repeatedly dismissed such allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Unlike Iran, Israel has refused to become a signatory to the NPT and continues to defy international calls to join the treaty.
The Tel Aviv regime, which is widely believed to possess between 200 to 400 nuclear warheads, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear activities, neither denying nor affirming its possession of atomic warheads.