Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US and EU countries should be held accountable for the exportation on arms to the Middle East, speaking in an exclusive interview to RT in Tehran on Wednesday.
“The arms which are daily fired above the heads of ordinary Yemenis and kill many people are not of local production. They were manufactured in the USA, France, the UK as well as in other European countries. They should be held accountable for that,” Zarif said. Any charge against Iran in this respect would be groundless, said Zarif, since the country’s missile arsenal “is defence-oriented.”
Zarif criticised US policy of backing out of international agreements and said it violated “all the aspects of international political relations.”
Touching on the announcement of US withdrawal from Syria, Zarif said that its immediate exodus would “benefit the whole region.”
As for the Syrian crisis, Zarif expressed hope that “some countries” which advocate for a military solution “understood everything and will reject their hidden agenda which continues to obstruct the peace in Syria and that they will join the process which the Syrian people themselves will choose to determine their own destiny.”
Zarif went on to discuss the INSTEX financial mechanism, whose creation has been recently announced by France, Germany and the UK in pursuit of financial engagement with Iran.
He said that it deals with the first phase but not the financial mechanism itself.
“It is the so-called prologue to the establishment of ties between commercial representatives of both sides and promotion of trade relations between Iran and Europe. According to the plan, the scope of this mechanism will be extended, for example, to non-European Union states, as well as numerous categories of goods, including those under sanctions, will be involved in its scope.”