Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Sunday rejected U.S. assistance in the fight against Coronavirus outbreak. He cited a bizarre conspiracy theory that the virus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, was an American creation “specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians.”
“Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more,” Khamenei said responding to the American offer of help.
“You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person,” he added.
In response to Washington’s generous offer, the Iranian leader called the U.S. the biggest enemy of his nation.
“Our number one enemy is America. It is the most wicked, sinister enemy of Iran … its leaders are terrorists … Liars and charlatans,” he said in his rant.
The renewed U.S. offer for help came after the coronavirus death toll in Iran crossed 1600, with authorities reporting over 21,000 confirmed cases of the virus in 30 out of 31 provinces across the country. The real numbers could be much higher, as the U.S. State Department believes that Tehran is suppressing the true extent of the outbreak. Recent satellite images show the regime digging mass graves south of Tehran in an apparent effort to cover up the severity of the epidemic.
While tightening economic sanctions on the Iranian regime, the U.S. has exempted medical and humanitarian aid from all restrictions.
“The whole world should know that humanitarian assistance to Iran is wide open, it’s not sanctioned,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated on Friday.
“There is no sanction on medicines going to Iran, there is [sic] no sanctions on humanitarian assistance going into that country. They’ve got a terrible problem there and we want that humanitarian, medical assistance to get to the people of Iran,” he added.
The news agency Reuters reported Iranian leaders remarks:
The United States’ offer to help Iran in its fight against the new coronavirus pandemic is strange, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech on Sunday, describing U.S. leaders as “charlatans and liars”. (…)Tensions between the two countries have been running high since 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump exited Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.“Several times Americans have offered to help us to fight the pandemic. That is strange because you face shortages in America. Also you are accused of creating this virus,” said Khamenei, an anti-U.S. hardliner who has the final say in Iran.“I do not know whether it is true. But when there is such an allegation, can a wise man trust you and accept your help offer? … You could be giving medicines to Iran that spread the virus or cause it to remain permanently.” (…)“Our number one enemy is America. It is the most wicked, sinister enemy of Iran … its leaders are terrorists … Liars and charlatans,” said Khamenei.
Khamenei, who regularly invokes “Death to America” chants in his Friday sermons, is not the only one peddling such unfounded and vile theories. Top Chinese regime officials are also spreading such rumors. Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian sent out a series of tweets from his official account, claiming the U.S. military planted the deadly virus in China.
“It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” he claimed.
These wild accusations couldn’t be further from the truth. It has been the Chinese official lies that have costed lives. Right from the onset, the Chinese regime tried to cover up the epidemic. Amid the outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, Beijing denied the human-to-human transmission of the disease. “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of Coronavirus, World Health Organization (WHO) declared on January 14. Beijing silenced early Chinese whistleblowers, local doctors, and medical personnel who tried to warn the public of the deadly infectious disease in Wuhan.
The Iranian regime, too, placed its people in harm’s way by exposing them to the outbreak that began in central China. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reportedly operated flights into China at the height of the epidemic, investigative reports found.
By trading in misinformation and conspiracy theories, these two regimes are hiding their own failures and liability in the spread of the life-threatening disease that has now engulfed large parts of the world. The coronavirus has confined billions of people to their homes. The virus also has crippled economies, destroyed livelihoods, and bankrupted businesses worldwide. In India alone, 1.3 billion people have been subjected to anti-coronavirus “people’s curfew,” as the virus claimed 14,700 lives across the globe.
The epicenter of the disease has move shifted to Europe, with Italy reporting 5,476 death, the highest outside China. Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Spain have all imposed near-lockdown measures. The virus will now probably reach Africa and South Asia, two of the world’s most densely populated regions with inadequate or non-existent medical infrastructures.
Mike Pompeo: ‘The US offered to help Iran with coronavirus response.’
[Cover image via YouTube]
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