UAE slams Iran foreign minister remarks

Dubai: The UAE has rejected claims by Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Zarif, that the UAE and Saudi Arabia were behind the escalating tensions between the US and Iran.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Monday that Zarif’s latest comments “exposed crippled logic”.

In an interview with Fox News this week, Zarif accused the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as US National Security Adviser John Bolton of “dragging” reluctant President Donald Trump into a conflict with Iran amid a stepped-up campaign by Washington against the Tehran regime.

“The circumstances surrounding Iran are the product of its own hands. Getting extricated from the crisis requires a realistic approach. Targeting our leadership backfires and will not help Iran in its ordeal, but will complicate the situation,” he added.

Iran is increasingly under international pressure to stop its destabilising acts in the Arab region.

Last week, the US declared ending sanctions waivers for Iranian oil imports, months after Trump re-imposed sanctions on Iran after he pulled out his country of a 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran.

Earlier this month, the US designated Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.