US envoy says Iran ‘lied to own people’ over coronavirus

A senior US official on Thursday accuses Iran of lying to its own people over the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and expressed dismay Tehran had refused an offer of American help.

Brian Hook, the US State Department’s envoy on Iran, says Tehran’s response to the virus was one reason Iranian authorities were enduring a “crisis of legitimacy.”

“Iran lied to its own people about the coronavirus,” Hook tells reporters on a trip to Paris to coordinate policy with Europe.

“It told them it was not anything to worry about but at the same time the virus was spreading throughout Iran.”

Iranian authorities have put the death toll from COVID-19 at 107, making it one of the worst-hit countries after China.

“Today as a result of the government’s mismanagement and not being transparent with its own people Iran has one of the world’s worst outbreaks of the coronavirus,” Hook says.

— AFP