US wrong policies, interference to blame for terror spread: Iran
Iran has hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his latest meddlesome comments about the Islamic Republic's role in the Middle East, saying Washington's "illegitimate interference and wrong policies" are the root cause of the expansion of terrorism and insecurity in the region.
"Instability, extremism, insecurity and the growth of terrorism as well as other problems and crises in this region are created by the US illegitimate interference and wrong policies," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday.
He made the comments after Pompeo claimed in a post on his Twitter account that Iran’s support for Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement "not only enables attacks on Saudi Arabia & UAE, but also risks increasing Yemen's already massive humanitarian crisis."
The Iranian spokesperson reacted to Pompeo's allegations and said such false comments and blame game against Tehran cannot hide the destructive and destabilizing role of the United States, which is "interfering in the affairs of our region from thousands of kilometers away."
The US must answer to world public opinion about its destructive and wrong policies, he added.
Qassemi emphasized that Washington is exacerbating the crises in the region and selling destructive arms to some regional countries on one hand and milking the resources of Muslim countries in the region on the other hand by resorting to different pretexts such as its threadbare policy of Iranophobia.
He said the oppressed Yemeni people, particularly the defenseless and innocent women, children and the elderly, are suffering from the round-the-clock bombardment by the Saudi regime, which enjoys the US government's financial and military support.
The perpetrators and supporters of these war crimes must be held accountable for their criminal acts one day, the Iranian spokesman pointed out.
Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a brutal war on Yemen in March 2015 to reinstall former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement that the war had left more than 600,000 civilians dead and injured.
The Saudi aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.
Since 2016, the impoverished nation has also been grappling with a deadly cholera outbreak, which has already killed thousands of people.
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