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Iranian official responds to Hammond: We are unchanged, Israel must be destroyed
A senior Iranian official yesterday responded to Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond’s assertion that Iranian attitudes towards Israel have shifted, emphasising that Tehran’s position remains unequivocal and that Israel should be annihilated.
On Sunday, Hammond reopened the UK Embassy in Tehran, which was closed four years ago, after a mob of regime loyalist protestors overran and ransacked the compound. The UK and Iran have been gradually restoring diplomatic relations since 2013 against the backdrop of negotiations to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme. Speaking to BBC Radio Four’s Today programme earlier this week, Hammond suggested that although Iranian leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, “that was the position of the previous president [Ahmadinejad]” but that the current regime “has a more nuanced approach.”
However, speaking to the Iranian Fars news agency yesterday, the Iranian Parliament Speaker’s Adviser for International Affairs Hossein Sheikholeslam said that Britain’s colonial past will never be forgotten. He also made clear that on Israel, “Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.” Earlier this month, Sheikholeslam told a Hamas-affiliated media outlet that during the recent nuclear talks, “We told them [the P5+1 powers of US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany] that we reject the existence of any Israeli on this earth.”
Meanwhile, the Times this morning reports that a US think tank has revealed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has placed commanders at the heart of more than 200 Iranian companies, which stand to benefit from UK investment once sanctions on Iran are lifted in accordance with the nuclear deal. The report warns that “Western companies may be unaware that their Iranian partner has a connection to the IRGC,” which is set to benefit from expected investment. The IRGC is a direct sponsor of terror groups including Hezbollah, is a close ally of Syria’s President Assad and is thought to coordinate terror attacks abroad.