Massive bombs will fail to guarantee US security: Iran official
A senior Iranian official has slammed as illegitimate the recent measure taken by Washington to drop a massive non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan, stressing that such measures would fail to make the US secure.
“Bombing people and countries [by the US] will never enhance this country’s national security,” Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said in a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Lieutenant General Zakir Hasanov in Tehran on Sunday.
He added that unilateral measures by the US and some of its allies and their efforts to undermine regional security were simply strengthening terrorist groups in the region and would render futile political approaches to solve the ongoing crises.
The SNSC secretary warned that the threat of terrorism and its root causes, including Takfiri ideology, which was promoted by some regional countries, have led to the creation of crises across the Middle East and were hindering the progress of Muslim states.
“Several cases of the use of chemical weapons by terrorist groups have been recorded and lack of appropriate response to them or playing a blame game and misleading [people] will result in a human catastrophe and their repeated use in other countries,” Shamkhani said.
The SNSC secretary made the comments a few days after the United States bombed Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province with a non-nuclear weapon, nicknamed the ‘mother of all bombs’.
Defense officials in Kabul have claimed that some 100 Daesh militants were killed after US jets dropped the 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43.
US military commanders have sought to justify the use of the bomb, saying it was necessary to target Daesh militants entrenched in booby-trapped tunnels in a remote mountainous region.
US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, said on Friday that military needs, and not political reasons, were considered in using the bomb.
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Elsewhere, Shamkhani noted that Tehran and Baku have numerous commonalities in defense, political, regional, cultural and religious sectors and stressed the importance of improving the two countries’ relations in strategic fields.
The Azeri defense minister, for his part, said the two countries were faced with common threats such as Takfiri and terrorist groups.
Hasanov added that Iran had valuable experience in counter-terrorism measures and expressed his country’s readiness to hold close talks with Tehran in this regard.
Heading a high-ranking defense and military delegation, Hasanov arrived in Tehran on Saturday for an official visit at the invitation of Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan.
The Iranian and Azeri defense chiefs held talks earlier on Sunday.
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