Politicians in Iran, including the president, express their disgust at the Israeli prime minister’s address to the US Congress

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has reacted to Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress by saying that the world and the American people are too intelligent to take advice from “an aggressive and occupier regime” that has itself developed an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“The world is happy with the progress in the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1,” Rouhani said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, speaking about the nuclear talks between Iran and the US, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain. “Only one aggressive and occupier regime [Israel] is angry with the talks because it sees its existence tied with war and occupation.”

Rouhani said: “People of the world and America are too smart to take advice from such a war-mongering regime … which has pursued, produced and stockpiled a large number of atomic bombs in violation of international laws and away from the eyes of international inspectors.” Rouhani was referring to the fact that Israel, unlike Iran, has not signed the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, also condemned Netanyahu’s speech as a “foul spectacle” intended to spread fear, and “a disgrace” for Israel.



He dismissed the Israeli leader’s claims as repetitive and ridiculous and said they exposed the declining influence of his country in the Middle East. “The person who is expressing such worries about Iran in fact has his hands on more than 200 nuclear warheads,” Larijani told Iranian lawmakers on Wednesday, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. “Doesn’t it show the disgrace of the world’s bullying power?”

Larijani also denied Netanyahu’s claim that Iran is seeking to build an empire in the region. In Tuesday’s speech, Netanyahu compared Iran to Islamic State (Isis) and said both were competing for the “crown of militant Islam”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Front pages of Iranian newspapers on Wednesday. Photograph: ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

He had told American lawmakers: “Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire.”

Larijani responded by saying: “We are not and have never been seeking to build an empire, but our Islamic revolutionary values against the big powers’ imperialism and the cruel Israel have appealed to the hearts of Muslims.”

Netanyahu’s speech also featured in Wednesday’s papers in Tehran. Kayhan, an ultra-conservative daily, described it as hollow in a front-page article and the reformist Etemaad said it was merely a “clown show”.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Gholamali Khoshroo, responded to the speech by writing an article for the New York Times, in which he said Netanyahu had a “campaign of misinformation” aimed at misleading the public about the details of current nuclear negotiations between Iran and the world’s major powers.



He wrote: “The paradox of the situation is that a government that has built a stockpile of nuclear weapons, rejected calls to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, made military incursions into neighbouring states and flouted international law by keeping the lands of other nations under occupation, now makes such a big fuss over a country, Iran, that has not invaded another country since America became a sovereign nation.”

Other Iranian politicians also rebuked the Israeli prime minister’s speech. Hossein Naghavi-Hosseini, an Iranian MP who sits on the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, echoed Larijani in condemning the address. “Netanyahu’s speech about Iran’s nuclear programme is an insult to all countries involved in the current negotiations,” he said, according to the semi-official Isna news agency.

Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh, an Iranian analyst, said the speech was “an insult to the political independence of America”. According to Isna, he said: “It was clear from Netanyahu’s speech that he is frightened by the prospects of an accord between Iran and the United States.”

Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) In the past 50 yrs, how much money and #reputation has it cost US to support #Israel’s crimes? Who other than its nation has paid for it?

Shortly after Netanyahu’s speech, Iran’s foreign minister reacted by dismissing it as “boring and repetitive” and an anti-Iranian tirade aimed at influencing the upcoming elections in Israel.

“Netanyahu’s lie-spreading campaign against Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme has become boring and repetitive,” said the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham. “The speech by the Zionist regime’s prime minister was a piece of deceitful theatre which is part of the hardliners’ election campaign in Tel Aviv,” she was quoted as saying by the state news agencies.

The Twitter account of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which is run by his office, also reacted to the speech by posting a number of tweets condemning Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.