Iran Rejects German Chancellor's Claims on Regional Destabilization as ‘Hypocritical’
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s claims about Tehran seeking to destabilize the region.
In statements on Wednesday, Scholz stated that Iran's missile assaults on Israel must be condemned in the harshest possible terms, claiming that Iran risks igniting the entire region.
In response, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, rejected the allegations in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.
“Sir, Iran has no interest in playing with fire (unlike your proxy),” Baqaei wrote, condemning Germany for contributing to regional instability through its support for Israel.
He added that Iran is “putting out the fire” caused by “your lethal gifts (to Israel).”
Baqaei also criticized Scholz for his “revealingly hypocritical” stance, saying those who are complicit in and justify the Israeli regime’s genocide and war crimes in the region, and violations of international law “lack any moral high ground to preach others who are bearing the brunt.”
On October 1, Iran launched missiles targeting Israeli military, intelligence, and espionage bases as part of the True Promise II operation.
The strikes followed Israel’s assassination of senior leaders from the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, as well as a commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
In retaliation, Israel vowed to respond to the missile attacks.
Baqaei further referenced Germany’s past role in providing chemical weapons to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, specifically during his attacks on the Iranian city of Sardasht and the Iraqi city of Halabja during the 1980s.
He noted that Scholz’s remarks reopen “the old wound inflicted on our flesh and soul by Chemical Weapons #Germany donated to Iraqi tyrant Saddam.”
During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam’s regime repeatedly used chemical weapons, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers.
In June 1987, Saddam’s regime dropped mustard gas on Sardasht, a small city in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province, killing at least 119 people and injuring another 8,000, leaving some of them permanently disabled.
Sardasht was the third city after Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki to become the target of weapons of mass destruction.
During the war, which lasted eight years, the Iraqi army continuously employed chemical weapons against Iranian combatants and civilians, leaving tens of thousands dead on the spot and many more suffering for years to come.
On March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein's regime also used chemical weapons in Halabja, home to Iraqi Kurds, who had sided with Iran in fighting Saddam. According to reports, 5,000 people, mainly women and children, were killed of mustard gas and sarin poisoning, and up to 12,000 died subsequently because of chemical exposure.
