Iran’s foreign minister has warned the US not to “tie its fate” with that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said Washington’s full support for Israel is “the root of insecurity in the region”.
“The US should not, Mr. [Joe] Biden should not tie his fate to the fate of Netanyahu,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
His comments came as the Israel-Hamas war enters its 100th day.
The US has expressed its firm support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas infiltrated Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.
After the attack, US President Joe Biden flew to the country in solidarity, pledging billions of dollars in military support. Since then, Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken has visited Israel several times since then.
“The full cooperation of Biden and the White House with thugs like Netanyahu in Israel is the root of insecurity in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian added.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Helping the Houthis?
Iran wants the US to “stop the war on Gaza,” Amir-Abdollahian said, stressing that security in the Red Sea is important to his country.
He sought to deny claims that the Islamic Republic is helping Yemen-based Houthi rebels, who have disrupted global trade in their attacks on merchant ships transiting the Red Sea.
“The people of Yemen and other countries in the region who are defending the Palestinian people are acting according to their own experience and interests and are not taking orders or instructions from us,” he said.
Maritime safety is of utmost importance to us, because we export oil.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
Foreign Minister of Iran
The Houthi militia group began drone and missile attacks on ships and cargo ships crossing the Red Sea late last year, making clear their intention to target Israeli ships and any others headed to or from Israel in retaliation for the war in Gaza. killed much more than 24,000 people there.
On Monday, the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile at a US-owned merchant vessel. said the US Central Command.
A cargo ship travels through the Suez Canal in Ismailia province, Egypt, January 13, 2024.
Ahmed Gomaa | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
“Maritime security is of utmost importance to us, because we export oil,” the Iranian minister said. “So if there is insecurity near us, it will not be in our favor.”
“We believe that any action to destabilize the region is rooted in Israel and its genocide in Gaza.”
Iran supports Hamas in its war with Israel and continues to supply the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah with weapons.
Yemeni officials, who are opposed to Houthi rebels fighting the government, have repeatedly accused Iran and Hezbollah of providing military and financial support to the militia group. Iranian and Hezbollah officials have denied these claims.
In an effort to protect the flow of international trade, the US and its allies began carrying out strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen last week.
“These targeted strikes are a clear signal that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to jeopardize freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical trade routes,” he said. then biden.
While the US has carried out strikes on Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq since the outbreak of the Gaza war, this would mark the first strike against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
We have no reservations about safeguarding our national interest with any other country.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
Foreign Minister of Iran
The chief negotiator for Yemen’s Houthis remained defiant on Monday, saying the Red Sea Attacks aimed at stopping Israeli ships will continue as they again called for an end to the war in Gaza.
Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi warned a televised speech last week that any American attack on the group would not go unanswered.
In what could ignite a conflagration of the existing conflict, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday fired ballistic missiles at what it believed to be an Israeli “espionage headquarters” in northern Iraq and “anti-Iranian terrorist groups”. in Syria.
Defending Iran’s actions, Amir-Abdollahian said the attacks by Iranian armed forces were “in line with the fight against terrorism and legitimate self-defense.”
“We have no reservations about safeguarding our national interest with any other country,” he added.