Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has called the Israeli regime “the real source of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)” in the region, reiterating that the regime in Tel Aviv is the most serious and immediate threat to humanity.
Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a Monday gathering of members of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland, where he called for the mobilization of international efforts against threats posed by the Israeli regime to global peace and security.
“It is necessary that the entire nuclear arsenal of this regime be eliminated and all of its nuclear facilities be placed under safeguards and verification mechanisms of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.
The minister said that the Israeli administration led by Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by the support of the US and certain Western countries during its ongoing war on Palestinians in Gaza as the regime has threatened to use nuclear weapons against the territory’s ruling resistance movement Hamas.
“...It was not a slip of the tongue by a minister of Netanyahu’s cabinet who recommended using the nuclear option to eliminate the Hamas liberation movement. Netanyahu had already spoken about the need to confront Iran with ‘a real nuclear threat’ in his United Nations General Assembly speech in September 2023,” said the top Iranian diplomat.
Back in January, Israel’s far-right minister Amichai Eliyahu renewed calls for striking Gaza with a nuclear bomb, amid Israel’s relentless aggression against the Gaza Strip.
Eliyahu had in November suggested dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip as “an option.”
In his remarks, Amir-Abdollahian said former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s had turned the country into the largest victim of WMDs since the end of the Second World War, and called for real action against the menace.
Also in his remarks, Amir-Abdollahian expressed hope that Iran’s rotating presidency over the Conference on Disarmament, which will start on March 18, would lead to more cooperation among members of the initiative.