Zarif to Pompeo: US, not Iran, squandering own people’s resources

Iran’s top diplomat says the US is squandering the resources of its own nation to push ahead with its policy of adventurism abroad and support “terror-sponsoring regimes,” stressing that the American people have had enough of “corruption” and “injustice” at home.
Mohammad Javad Zarif posted a press statement on his Twitter page on Thursday to hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his latest interventionist comments about recent protests against economic issues in Tehran.
In the statement, Zarif mimicked Pompeo, who sought on Wednesday to take advantage of guild-related protests in Tehran and denounce the Iranian establishment’s policies — a usual practice of the Washington administration.
Zarif also touched on the latest wave of protests across the US over the past days against President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which more than 2,000 migrant children who illegally crossed into the US with adult relatives were separated from them.
Many of those children ended up in concrete-floored cages in detention facilities or were placed with foster families.
The Iranian foreign minister further condemned the US government’s “futile tactics of suppression, imprisonment of protesters, separation of immigrant families and caging of their babies, and the denial of Americans’ frustrations.”
The American people, he added, want their leaders “to share the country’s wealth and respond to their legitimate needs,” said his Twitter statement.
Zarif further emphasized, “The people of the United States are tired of corruption, injustice and incompetence from their leaders. The world hears their voice.”
Earlier this week, a group of businesspeople in Tehran Grand Bazaar shut down their businesses in protest at the economic performance of the administration as well as foreign exchange problems — which are mainly rooted in Washington’s hostile policies toward Iran, particularly the re-imposition of economic sanctions on Iran after leaving the 2015 nuclear deal.
Soon afterwards, calm returned to the bazaar and shop owners opened their shops to resume activities.