Iran pans US threat of military strike

Iran’s defense minister lambastes his US counterpart’s comments about military options against Tehran still being on the table despite ongoing nuclear talks, saying they show America cannot be trusted.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, quoted by the official IRNA news agency Thursday, says Pentagon chief Ashton Carter’s remarks were “designed to affect the rational atmosphere of negotiations” between Iran and world powers in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Ashton, who became defense secretary in February, said in an interview Tuesday with NBC News that if a nuclear deal is not reached “the military option certainly will remain on the table.”

“If there is a good agreement to have, obviously it is worth waiting for and completing the negotiations,” he added.

Dehghan dismisses Ashton’s words as an “empty” threat that would not affect Iran’s “reasonable, rational and fair position” in the talks, though they had come at a “sensitive and difficult” time.

“The said remarks are a testament to the Islamic republic’s distrust for the US,” he says, accusing Carter of “suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.”

“If Ashton Carter remembered America’s previous and recent defeats in the region and the world, he would refrain from making such empty remarks,” Dehghan says.

Iran is “at all times and in all situations ready to retaliate against any hostile threats from aggressors,” he adds.

— AFP