Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian denounced the United States' allegations regarding the presence of a person believed to be the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iran, and Tehran also rejected a US Gulf statement accusing it of continuing the policy of destabilization.
The Iranian foreign minister said that the White House should stop the "failed Iranophobia game," describing the statements about the presence of the al-Qaeda leader in Iran as false and ridiculous.
And Abdullahian said, yesterday, Thursday, via Twitter, that "those who created al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are responsible for the growth of terrorism in the world."
The Iranian foreign minister's remarks came after the US State Department said that the person believed to be the new leader of al-Qaeda is in Iran.
The US State Department stated that the Egyptian citizen Saif al-Adel became the leader of al-Qaeda after the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in July 2022.
#Espionage.
#Militant in #Iran identified as likely new head of al-#Qaeda in #UN reports: Saif Al-#Adel https://t.co/WXTnIPWlz5 pic.twitter.com/tO3mY20aKt
— Donato Yaakov Secchi (@doyaksec) February 15, 2023
"Our assessment is consistent with the assessment of the United Nations that the new de facto leader of al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, is in Iran," said State Department spokesman Ned Price, on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the United Nations issued a report stating that the prevailing opinion of member states is that Saif al-Adel has become the leader of al-Qaeda, but the organization has not yet declared him an Emir due to sensitivity about the position of the Afghan government led by the Taliban, which did not want to acknowledge the killing of al-Zawahiri with an American missile in Kabul. According to the UN report.
American Gulf statement
On the other hand, a joint statement of the US-Gulf Action Group on Iran condemned what it described as Tehran's continued policy of destabilizing, including its support for terrorism and the use of advanced missiles and drones and their deployment in the region and around the world.
The statement, which came at the conclusion of talks between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and senior US officials in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Wednesday, said that Iran and its proxies and partners have used Iranian weapons to launch attacks targeting civilians and critical infrastructure and threatening international shipping.
The statement stated that the remarkable progress in the Iranian nuclear program, as documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency, particularly the production of highly enriched uranium, is a source of exacerbation of regional and international tensions.
For his part, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that the statement is consistent with what he described as a long-term US strategy aimed at creating division among the countries of the region.
Kanaani affirmed his country's rejection of what he described as the repeated and boring accusations included in the statement and its adherence to diplomacy and ending regional crises through political dialogue.
The Iranian spokesman also expressed Tehran's hope that the countries of the region would take a step towards peace, security and sustainable development.