IRGC: US Spying Scandal Shows Washington’s Untrustworthiness for Talks

The recent revelations about the United States’ illegal use of surveillance and wiretapping of the telephone conversations of other countries’ leaders, officials and people indicate that Washington is no trustworthy partner for talks, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said.
In a statement released on Saturday to mark the 34th anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover, the IRGC said the recent scandal pertaining to the US spying on other countries displays that Iran should be increasingly vigilant in its talks with the six world powers, and that confidence-building should be done mutually and concurrently.

“34 years after the seizure of the (US) spy den in Tehran, now that the White House’s shameful wiretapping of conversations and spying on the statesmen and officials of the other countries has been exposed, calling the US embassies in the world countries, especially its European allies, as spy dens has become a global issue, and nations consider the negligence and unintelligent trust of their governments in Washington as the main cause of the violation of their citizenship rights and infringement of their privacy,” the statement said.

It added that despite the chain of plots and scenarios of the hegemonic camp and international Zionism against the Iranian nation in the past 35 years, the discourse of the Islamic Revolution has gone beyond the geography of the country and the region and seriously influenced Europe and the US heartland.

“And now the US and its partners have not only failed in their confrontation with the Islamic establishment, but also forgotten their black record (in dealing with Iran) and are today working to establish interaction and dialogue with the Islamic Republic due to the Iranians’ resistance, campaign against the arrogance, the strategic depth of this campaign and the manifestation of Islamic awakening,” the statement said.

The statement pointed to the tactic of ‘heroic flexibility’ as a test of the truthfulness and honesty of the US and other members of the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) in the nuclear talks (with Iran) and as a prelude to developing constructive interaction with Iran, and said, “The trend of developments, remarks and stances of the US officials and bodies in recent weeks is indicative of the inability of the White House leaders to bring about national consensus about the settlement of the nuclear case and recognition of the Iranian nation’s legal and inalienable rights and unfortunately displays that the US continues its oppressive scenarios and still beats on the drums of tightening sanctions and pressures and even threats without paying any heed to the golden opportunity (present now).”

The IRGC reiterated that erasing the impacts of the US government’s plots and crimes, specially in the past three decades, from the Iranian nation’s historic memory is something impossible, and said, “The Iranians’ revolutionary hatred and disgust which will be manifested once again in the strong slogan of ‘Death to the US’ to be chanted across Iran on November 4 is regarded as a valuable, influential and available asset of the Iranian diplomacy apparatus in the process of nuclear negotiations and upcoming interactions and is deemed as a determining tool against the strategy of ‘pressure-and-talks’ of the opposite sides of the talks, in addition to showing national unity and concordance of all political currents and factions who believe in the Islamic establishment.

The statement stressed that the Iranian nation rests assured that its government, which enjoys the backing of Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, will vigilantly, smartly and resolutely defend the country’s rational stances and nuclear rights by its strong presence in the current negotiations and relying on the Supreme Leader’s prescribed tactic of “Heroic Flexibility”. Yet it reiterated that flexibility should not be seen by the opposite side as gullibility as Iranians are watching every single, subtle move with their eyes open wide.

It described the US spying activities against other countries as a corroborative and vivid proof justifying lack of trust in the White House leaders and the US government, and said, “Given the Americans’ dark and treacherous record, the Iranian nation is entitled to demand concurrent, reciprocal confidence-building moves by the (opposite) parties to the nuclear debate, and will continue showing its distrust and declaring its hatred and disgust for the irrational, conceited and vow-breaking government of the US.”

Since the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, Iranians have been celebrating the occasion every year by holding rallies on the anniversary and marking it as the National Day against the ‘Global Arrogance’.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian university students took over the building to thwart what they called Washington’s plots against the Islamic Revolution. Inside the embassy, the students found shredded documents which proved their convictions.

And now concurrent with this occasion, the world has come to realize that the US National Security Agency has been monitoring the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The confidential memo, dated October 2006, reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its “customer” departments, such as the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their “Rolodexes” so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.

The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately “tasked” for monitoring by the NSA.

The revelation is set to add to mounting diplomatic tensions between the US and its allies, after the German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday accused the US of tapping her mobile phone.

The NSA memo suggests that such surveillance was not isolated, as the agency routinely monitors the phone numbers of world leaders – and even asks for the assistance of other US officials to do so.

The rift over US surveillance activities first emerged earlier this year with reports that Washington had bugged European Union offices and tapped half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month.

Merkel’s government said in August just weeks before the German election that the US had given sufficient assurances it was complying with German law.

This week’s news has reignited criticism of the US surveillance, and Volker Kauder, head of Merkel’s party in parliament, called it a “grave breach of trust” and said the US should stop its “global power demeanor”.