Text to Speech

TEHRAN � The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday reacted angrily to anti Iran remarks by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, saying it was expected that the German foreign minister would have apologized for the “shameful performance” of the previous German government toward the Iranian and Iraqi nations. Germany provided Iraq’s Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons that his army used against Iranian troops and civilians alike in the 1980s and also the Iraqi Kurds in the north. “It was expected that before anything else the German foreign minister would have apologized toward the shameful performance of the previous government of her country toward the two nations of Iran and Iraq rather than raising baseless claims against the Islamic Republic of Iran to cover up the record of her country’s crimes in supporting the regime of Saddam against Iran and the scandalous crime of arming the Baathist (Saddam) regime with chemical weapons for use against military troops and defenseless citizens of Iran and Iraq,” Kanaani explained. On a visit to the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Tuesday, Baerbock claimed that Iranian missile attacks on terrorist positions in Iraq s Kurdistan put regional stability at risk. Kanaani went on to say that Iran has an undeniable role in backing and respecting Iraq’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also reminded the German foreign minister that currently a considerable number of terrorist and armed separatist groups, whose hands are tainted with the blood of non military Iranian and Iraqi citizens, have selected Germany as their home. Kanaani was referring to MKO operatives who conducted many terrorist activities in Iran in the early years of the Islamic Revolution and later were used by Saddam Hussein in cracking down on the Iraqi Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north. The spokesman said the German foreign minister’s remarks against Iran while in Baghdad are an indication of Berlin’s support for armed terrorists and separatists against the Islamic Republic and in line with “futile attempts” to undermine the relations between the neighboring countries of Iran and Iraq. At the conclusion, Kanaani advised Germany to take lessons from history by noting that countries and nations in the Middle East region will not forget the behavior of certain Western countries, and Germany in particular, in inflaming wars and backing war hungry dictators .