Times of Israel | 5 March 2015
Dodging some questions, finessing others in extensive TV interview, Iranian foreign minister says Iran has saved Jews three times in its history and threatens nobody
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that his country seeks the annihilation of the “Netanyahu regime” but denied that it seeks to wipe out Israel.
In an NBC interview on Wednesday, Zarif finessed a series of questions raised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to Congress Tuesday, including over Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s tweet last year urging the annihilation of Israel, and about his own laying of a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, the arch-Hezbollah terrorist responsible for the killings of hundreds of Americans.
Zarif said Netanyahu had been fanning “hysteria” since 1992 with the claim that Iran was two years from the bomb. “Once this fear mongering is out, then we can have a deal,” he said. Zarif also denied stalling the IAEA’s efforts to probe alleged nuclear weapons work. He spent much of the extensive interview castigating Israel for a series of alleged vicious crimes, while insisting on Iran’s tolerant and peaceful nature.