“Washington not qualified to judge others”, Iran Foreign Ministry

Abbas Mousavi made the remarks on Monday while referring to a recent report on which the US State Department accused some Iranian officials, including the interior minister, of human rights abuses.

“This so-called report has been drawn up on the basis of unfounded and imaginary accusations for which no proof has ever been given and by those who have interfered in the internal affairs of at least 55 independent countries during the past century under baseless excuses. There exists a long list of their illegal measures against people of the world, part of which has been revealed by analysts and researchers, who have published hundreds of books in this regard,” Mousavi said.

The US Treasury on Wednesday imposed illegal sanctions on eight Iranian officials, including Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, as part of an anti-Iran campaign pursued by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The measure was said to be aimed at holding “accountable Iranian officials and institutions” over the riots that took place in Iran in November 2019.

Mousavi further described the US regime as a state sponsor of terrorism and said, “According to available information, the United States has harbored at least eight well-known terrorist groups since the 1960s, who have bloody track records in West Asia, Europe and Latin America. Among them is the terrorist Mujahedeen Khalq Organization, which is responsible for assassinating 17,000 Iranian citizens and officials during the past four decades.”

He added that the creation of and providing support to “the savage and blood-thirsty Daesh group” is among other historical crimes that Americans have committed in recent years.

Based on figures released by the US Department of the Treasury, Washington has imposed sanctions on 33 countries across the world only since 2017, the Iranian spokesperson said, adding, "Several of these unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions have had severe and destructive impacts on the people of these countries."

Mousavi noted that US militarism, on the other hand, has surpassed that of other “savage empires” in history, adding, “This militarism has been so unprecedented that this country has registered 135 big wars in its history, and only in 16 out of its 243-year-old history, it has not been involved in war, killing and bloodshed through use of conventional and unconventional weapons.”

Pointing to the US’ direct and indirect intervention in coups, regime changes and color revolutions since the end of World War II, he said, "The US has directly and through its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out 79 cases of coup and regime change in world countries, a number of which have been unsuccessful."

He emphasized that the United States has directly or indirectly supported anti-government chaos in different countries, some of which have led to the empowerment of its stooges and proxy governments.

The Iranian spokesman further pointed to the killing of civilians in military drone attacks in at least six countries of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen in the name of war against terrorism and said many civilian targets and individuals have been attacked deliberately.