US Amb. to UN rejects Iran blame over parade attack
After 29 killed, over 60 wounded in shooting attack during military parade, Haley says to Iran's President Rouhani in CNN interview, 'He can blame us all he wants. The thing he’s got to do is look at the mirror.'
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley dismissed Iran’s assertion on Sunday that Washington and its Gulf allies were to blame for a deadly parade attack and said Tehran should look closer to home.
Before leaving for the United Nations on Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused other countries including the United States of provoking the shooting attack on a military parade that killed 29 people on Saturday and wounded over 60.
Haley dismissed his comments as rhetoric.
“He’s got the Iranian people protesting, every ounce of money that goes into Iran goes into his military, he has oppressed his people for a long time and he needs to look at his own base to figure out where that’s coming from,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“He can blame us all he wants. The thing he’s got to do is look at the mirror.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed on Sunday to wreak “deadly and unforgettable” vengeance for the attack, which killed 12 of their comrades.
There has been a blizzard of furious statements from top Iranian officials blaming the US and Gulf kingdoms for the bloodshed and threatening a tough response.
“America wants to cause chaos and unrest in our country so that it can return to this country, but these are unreal fantasies and they will never achieve their goals,” Rouhani said.
Haley was asked about comments made Saturday night after the attack by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. He told an Iranian opposition group that US sanctions on Iran are leading to economic pain that could lead to a “successful revolution.”
Giuliani has made similar comments before on Iran, and the State Department has said he does not speak for the administration.
The UN ambassador, without mentioning Giuliani, told CNN, “The United States is not looking to do regime change in Iran.”
Trump administration policy does not seek a change of government even though it is reimposing sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy after Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.
Haley said Washington was trying to counter Iranian malign activities in the region as Tehran continued to test ballistic missiles, support terrorism and sell arms.
Before his departure to attend the UN general assembly in New York, Rouhani said that "Iran's answer (to this attack) is forthcoming within the framework of law and our national interests."
He also accused the US of being a "bully" that wants to create insecurity in the Islamic Republic. "Hopefully we will overcome US sanctions with the least possible costs and make America regret its aggressiveness towards other countries, and particularly Iran."
Iran has summoned diplomats from Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands over allegedly harboring "members of the terrorist group" that launched an attack on a military parade in the country's southwest.
The spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry said it is unacceptable that terror organization are not defined as such by the European Union as long as they do not carry out terror attacks in Europe.
An anti-government Arab group, the Ahvaz National Resistance, and the Islamic State Group (ISIS) both claimed responsibility for the attack. However, they provided no evidence.
