Tehran, May 1 (UNI) Iran has rejected the US’ “self-defence” justification for starting the war, accusing it of misusing the concept to legitimise what it characterised as “full-fledged aggression”, arguing that it faced no prior armed attack or any other threat from Tehran to use as a garb of self-preservation.
That April 21 statement, attributed to State Department’s legal advisor Reed Rubinstein said, in part, that Washington “is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defence of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defence,” citing the threat of Iran’s ballistic missile programme and a need to ensure Iran “will never have nuclear weapons.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei, dismissing the statement said Friday, “Self Defence? Against what?”, adding “Was there any ‘armed attack’ by Iran to justify ‘self defence’? Definitely not! So this was absolutely NOT ‘self-defence’ — it was an act of AGGRESSION against the nation of Iran.”
“They are constantly repeating ‘nuclear bomb’ and are misleading the entire world with this claim,” said Baghaei separately in an interview Friday on Iranian state television.
“For 30 or 40 years, the other side has been claiming that Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb, but there is no such thing, and no one has found even the slightest evidence for it.”
Iran has long denied pursuing nuclear weapons. Although it expanded uranium enrichment after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, gaining a stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, international monitors have said there was no clear indication of an active programme to weaponise its uranium stockpile prior to the beginning of the war.
