Press TV - Iran's UN mission has categorically dismissed as "unfounded" US Ambassador Nikki Haley's claimthat a missile fired at Saudi Arabia from Yemen last month was supplied by the Islamic Republic.
In a statement released on Thursday, the mission denounced theUS allegations as "irresponsible, provocative and destructive," saying"this purportedevidence ... is as much fabricated as the one presentedon some other occasions earlier."
"These accusations seek also to cover up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, with the US complicity, and divert international and regional attention from the stalemate war of aggression against the Yemenis that has so far killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced three million, crippled Yemen's infrastructure and health system and pushed the country to the brinkof the largest famine the world has seen for decades, as the UN has warned," the statement read.
It went on to accuse the US government of being "constantly at work to deceive the public into believing the cases they put together" to advance itsagenda.
"While Iran has not supplied Yemen with missiles, these hyperboles are also to serve other US agendas in the Middle East, including covering up for its adventurist acts in the region and its unbridled support for the Israeli regime," the statement read.
It also stressed "the Yemenis' right to self-defense" and reiterated that the conflict in the impoverished country had no military solution.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Gholam-Ali Khoshrou also rejected his American counterparts claims and said the show Haley put up earlier in the day was merely meant to cover up Washingtons own supply lethal weapons to the Saudi regime, which have resulted in the deaths of Yemeni women and children.
Those empty and meaningless accusations, Khoshru said, has nothing to do with Iran, whose stance on Yemen is based on dialog and peace.
Iran wants peace, dialog and an immediate ceasefire and a halt to bombardments against Yemen, said the senior diplomat, emphasizing that the US must, above all, end its arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also took to twitter to compare Haleys allegations against Iran to those of former US secretary of defense, Colin Powell, who alleged in 2003 that former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was hiding weapons of mass destruction in order to make a case for attacking the country.
When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat... pic.twitter.com/2sAsMB6o4m
Javad Zarif (@JZarif) December 14, 2017
The anti-Iran accusations come at a time that the US and Saudi Arabia themselves are under fire for secretly providing weapons to the militants fighting the Syrian government.
Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a UK-based organization that monitors the movement of conventional weapons, warned on Thursday that the sophisticated arms given to the so-called Syria militants fell into the hands of the Daesh terrorist group.
The weapons included anti-tank rockets purchased by the US military that ended up in possession of Daesh within two months of leaving thefactory, according to the study, which wasfunded by the European Union and German government.
This came after the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a confidential report obtained by AFP on Monday, December 11, that the world bodys team, which visited Riyadh last month to scrutinize the alleged evidence, had not yet established a link between them and the Islamic Republic.
On November 4, a missile firedfrom Yemen targeted the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.
The Houthi movement, which has been fighting back a Saudi aggression, said it had fired the missile but the Riyadh regime was quick to point the finger at Iran.
Tehran rejected the allegations as provocative and baseless, saying theYemenis had shown an independent reaction to the Saudi bombing campaign on their country.
Speaking at a press conference at a military base in Washington on Thursday, Haley presented what she claimed to be "undeniable" evidence, including the allegedly recovered pieces of the missile, saying it proved that Iran was violating international law by givingmissiles to the Houthis.
"It was made in Iran then sent to Houthi militants in Yemen," she added.
However, apanel appointed by the United Nations Security Council said last month that it had seen no evidence to support Saudi Arabias claims that missiles hadbeen transferred to Yemens Houthifighters by external sources.
The Security Council-appointed panel said in its confidential assessment that it had seen no evidence to back up the Saudi claims that short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) had been transferred to Yemeni fighters in violation of the Resolution 2216.
It said the tightening of the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition and its invoking of Resolution 2216 had been an attempt to merely obstruct the delivery of civilian aid.
The panel finds that imposition of access restrictions is another attempt by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to use paragraph 14 of resolution 2216 as justification for obstructing the delivery of commodities that are essentially civilian in nature, the assessment read.
The Saudi war since 2015,accompanied by theland, naval, and aerial blockade on Yemen, has killed over 12,000 people so far and led to a humanitarian crisis as well as a deadly cholera epidemic.
Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the warin a bid to crush the Houthi movement and reinstate the former Riyadh-friendly regime, but the kingdom has achieved neither of its goals.
The UN has listed Yemen as the worlds number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million Yemenis in need of food and gripping the country.
The US, which has long been a staunch Saudially, signed a deal to sellthe kingdom$110 billion inweapons in May.
