In response to the Hamas leader’s announcement of help from Tehran, Nikki Haley said that Iran has to decide on which side it is.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday condemned Tehran’s support to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Haley said that Tehran has to come clean before the international community.
“Iran is showing its true colors. Iran must decide whether it wants to be a member of the community of nations that can be expected to take its international obligations seriously or whether it wants to be the leader of a jihadist terrorist movement. It cannot be both,” Haley said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the new leader of Hamas said that it was getting good support in terms of money and arms from Tehran. Earlier, the relations between Hamas and Iran were strained as the former had refused to support its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the six years old civil war.
“It’s long past time for the international community to hold Iran to the same standard that all countries who actually value peace and security are held to,” Haley said.
Earlier this week, an Iranian government’s spokesperson said that United States’ comments on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iranian military sites “merely a dream.” In response to the comment, Haley said, “If inspections of Iranian military sites are ‘merely a dream,’ as Iran says, then Iranian compliance with the JCPOA is also a dream.” The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was reached between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and Iran in 2015 to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be peaceful.
The scale of Tehran’s funding to Hamas is still unclear but, reportedly, Iran’s monetary aid for Hamas was drastically reduced in last few years and the country was rather directing it to Qassam Brigades than to Hamas’s political institutions.
Since 2007, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel after capturing the Gaza Strip from loyalists of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Reuters reported.