Tehran censures Persian Gulf Cooperation Council's approach for extension of anti-Iran arms embargo
Islamic Republic of Iran has denounced statement issued by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) calling for extension of arms embargo against Tehran.
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Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday expressed regret over the destructive approach adopted by certain members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council against Iran.
He said the so-called Persian Gulf Cooperation Council seems to have turned into a mouthpiece for some "narrow-minded people" both inside the council and outside the region.
"The council’s secretariat, swayed by the wrong and destructive policies and behavior of certain member states, has turned into a mouthpiece for anti-Iran elements,” the spokesman said.
He said the GCC is currently at the "apex of its incompetence", and its "unrealistic" policies have rendered it ineffective.
His comments came after the secretariat of the GCC, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, said in a statement that Iran's alleged “interference” in neighboring countries made an extension of the UN arms embargo necessary.
The arms embargo on Iran is currently set to end on October 18 under Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which Washington quit in 2018.
"It is inappropriate to lift restrictions on the supply of weapons from and to Iran,” a statement from GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Mubarak al-Hajraf said.
In his Sunday comments, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman described the secretary general’s remarks as “irresponsible ones dictated and issued unilaterally at a time when some members of the council have not stopped purchasing and stockpiling weapons even at a time of economic problems, and are among the biggest buyers of arms in the region and in the world.”
The spokesman said the United States’ interests are undoubtedly contingent upon further sales of weapons to these countries with such approaches and empty claims.
“The killing of defenseless people and children in Yemen is a textbook example of wrong policies adopted by certain GCC members, which have resulted in Yemeni people being killed every day before the eyes of the world by different Western weapons by leaders of this very council,” Mousavi went on to say.
Saudi Arabia waged a devastating military aggression against its southern neighbor Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allied states, and with arms support from certain Western countries.
The purported aim was to return to power a Riyadh-backed former regime and defeat the Houthi Ansarullah movement that took control of state matters after the resignation of the then president and his government.
The UN refers to the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than half of hospitals and clinics destroyed or closed.
