Iran’s foreign minister denounced as “shameful” President Trump’s statement saying the U.S. will maintain ties with Saudi Arabia despite the international furor over Riyadh’s role in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, in a Twitter post, noted that the U.S. president took another swipe at Tehran in his two-page policy statement released Tuesday before even turning to the Saudi controversy.
“Mr. Trump bizarrely devoted the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of,” Mr. Zarif tweeted.
While condemning the murder of Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday the relationship with the Saudi kingdom — as a global oil supplier, as a customer of U.S. arms, as a regional bulwark against Iran and its proxies — was too valuable to sacrifice just because of the Khashoggi killing.
Mr. Zarif, a prime architect of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration renounced earlier this year, alluded to another recent statement by the U.S. president on Finland’s success in fighting wildfires to mock Mr. Trump
“Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests — just like the Finns do?” Mr. Zarif tweeted.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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