Foreign Minister Zarif Censures Trump for Anti-Iran Remarks

Zarif tweeted late on Tuesday and denounced the recent remarks of the US President Trump, highlighting that the US top executive is laying blame on irrelevant sides when encountered with problems.

In his statement, titled ‘America First’, which was released on Tuesday by the White House, Trump claimed, “The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen.” He also praised Saudi Arabia as a US ally in standing against Iran.

Zarif pointed out in his message that Trump “bizarrely devotes” the first paragraph of his “shameful” statement on accusing Iran of the illegal acts of “Saudi atrocities”.

Ridiculing Trump for what he said about his meeting with Finnish president, Zarif added, “Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests— just like the Finns do?”

Trump claimed that Finnish President Sauli Niinistö had talked about how to prevent wildfires in last week meeting in Paris and added, “They spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem.”

Saudi Arabia and some of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan, launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The Saudi-led war on Yemen has resulted into a serious humanitarian crisis in the war-battered country and many campaigns have been launched in the western countries, urging the US and the UK to stop selling arms to Riyadh.

Despite the calls made by the public opinion of the world, Trump is ignoring the humanitarian issues in War-torn Yemen, insisting that arms sales to Saudi Arabia are creating employment in the US, and providing the American economy with benefits.

The aggression initially consisted of a bombing campaign but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen. Around 20,000 people have died since the war began, says Yemen’s Health Ministry.

The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations (UN) has said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

In August, a Saudi air raid hit a school bus as it drove through a market in the town of Dhahyan in Sa’ada Province in Northwestern Yemen, killing a total of 51 people, among them 40 children, and injuring 79 others, mostly children.

According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia’s deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.