Using an American veto of a UN resolution on Jerusalem and Palestine, Iran denounced the US “crook in the region” on Monday.
Iran has used Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital on December 6 in a campaign to rally Arab, Islamic, and global opinion around Tehran’s declared defense of the Palestinian people.
The US handed the Islamic Republic another opportunity on Monday when the UN Security Council voted 14-1 for a the resolution expressed “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem”. Casting the American veto to block the measure, Ambassador Nikki Haley said it was an “insult”: “The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.”
At the UN, Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo responded, “The US wishes to remove solving Palestine’s problems from the UN’s agenda by twisting reality and misleading public opinion.” In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said “the US showed its lack of adherence to international resolutions”.
Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, at a meeting of MPs from Islamic countries, had some of the sharpest words for Washington: “The US plays the role of a crook in the region and they are proud of their scams.”
In a message directed at Saudi Arabia, he criticized the “strategic mistake” of “some Muslim countries…holding ties with the Zionist regime” of Israel.
