TEHRAN
Iran has responded angrily on Wednesday to a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to U.S. Congress calling for a more aggressive approach towards Iran's nuclear programme.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned that any military operation by Israel could force an Iranian response, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
He said Netanyahu's speech was "a political show played in Congress and indicates that the Congress of the big country that claims world management is in the hands of a puppet regime.”
“The weakness and anxiety of the occupier Israel could be felt in his speech, which indicates the decline of his regime during the past three decades,” said Larijani. “It was interesting that the regime which has leaned on almost 200 nuclear warheads is accusing Iran for having the potentiality of creating nuclear weapons.”
Larijani said Netanyahu sought to stoke fears about Iran's nuclear program in order to scupper nuclear talks between Iran and western powers.
Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham also told a press briefing that Netanyahu's speech was "an effort to impose their radical and irrational agenda on international policy."
Netanyahu told Congress on Tuesday that a proposed agreement from the ongoing talks is "a very bad deal. We're better off without it.”
“It doesn’t block Iran’s path to a bomb, it paves Iran’s path to a bomb,” he said.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Netanyahu's speech "didn’t offer any viable alternatives” to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu’s address came just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Zarif, in Switzerland to continue talks ahead of a critical deadline.
Despite the Israeli prime minister’s opposition, the administration has maintained that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” and negotiators from the P5+1 group of world powers – the U.S., China, France, UK, Russia, plus Germany, have until the end of the month to hammer out a political framework agreement with Iran.
A final deadline for a comprehensive accord is set for the end of June.
