The Iran parliament’s newly elected Speaker Mohmmad Baqer Qalibaf said Sunday the Islamic system is “an important power in the region” that has grown to be a force on the world stage destined soon to evict U.S. military “terrorists” from the Middle East.
The former commander of Iran’s air force was elected speaker on Thursday after low-turnout elections in February that helped ultra-conservatives dominate the rubber stamp legislature.
Qalibaf said the parliament under his leadership “considers negotiations with and appeasement of America, as the axis of global arrogance, to be futile and harmful,” vowing revenge for the U.S. drone attack in January that killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iran’s foreign terrroism arm.
He promised no retreat from the strident anti-America stance that has long been a feature of Iranian politics in general and its parliament in particular, as Breitbart News reported.
Iranian MPs Burn U.S. Flag in Parliament, Chant "Death to America," following Trump's Withdrawal from Nuclear Deal pic.twitter.com/3zCiFSLblz
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 9, 2018
“Our strategy in confronting the terrorist America is to finish the revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood,” he told lawmakers in a televised address as reported by the local IRNA news agency.
This, he said, would entail “the total expulsion of America’s terrorist army from the region” and Iran’s triumph as “a symbol of resistance against the arrogant powers.”
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been rising since 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from a landmark nuclear accord negotiated by Barack Obama and began reimposing crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy.
That was followed by the U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport in January that killed Soleimani, the mastermind behind Iran’s regional expansion.
Days later, Iran fired over a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting U.S. troops — though no casualties were reported.
AFP contributed to this story
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