IRAN NEWS NATIONAL DESK

TEHRAN – A senior Health Ministry official categorically rejects the BBC Persian’s allegation that at least 210 people have died from coronavirus in Iran, saying the channel is seeking to take political advantage of the viral outbreak.

“Coronavirus has brought suffering and infirmity upon the people of the world. However, it has turned into a source of profit for such satellite channels and others with corresponding roles in Saudi Arabian and Albanian channels,” Kianoush Jahanpour, head of the Ministry’s Public Relations and Information Center, told IRNA on Friday.

“These are seeking to satisfy [their] ignoble political goals by creating anxiety and distress among nations, and are unfortunately making their money this way,” he added.

The BBC Persian carried the report earlier in the day, citing unnamed “hospital sources.”

“The media outlet’s claim is irrelevant. This time too it has drawn a blank,” the Iranian official said, noting that even the number of fatalities among those suffering from acute respiratory syndromes may not reach that high.

He said the channel had intentionally come up with the figure to sow fear among Iranians, and reminded that it has stopped short of naming its sources.

Jahanpour said the Islamic Republic viewed the issue of the outbreak as one that was tied to the public health, and would, therefore, avoid politicizing it.

The country, he noted, has observed rigor and transparency in its reports on the spread, while many others are either incapable of exactly recording their cases or would deny the number of victims for political reasons.

“I have to tell you that Iran is the first and the only country to release its information about coronavirus without any processing and in a fully transparent manner since the beginning of the outbreak,” the official, meanwhile, told Press TV on Friday night.

He also said the number of the novel coronavirus cases has risen to nearly 600, with the death toll hitting 43.

Speaking on Saturday, Kianoush Jahanpour, the head of public relations and information center of the Iranian Ministry of Health, reported 205 new infections within 24 hours, mostly in the capital Tehran.

In total, he added, 593 people have contracted the disease and 43 have died.

Jahanpour further noted that 123 coronavirus patients have recovered from the infection.

The coronavirus — named COVID-19 — first emerged in China late last year and is now spreading in Europe and across the Middle East, sparking fears of a global pandemic.

In Iran, the virus showed up in the city of Qom, a destination for Muslim pilgrims from across the world.

The government has ordered the shutting of schools until Tuesday and extended the closure of universities and a ban on concerts and sports events for a week.

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Because of portraying a wrong image of Iran’s economic situation and encouraging the people to take out their assets from the country, the BBC Persian has turned into a partner in economic terrorism, the ambassador noted.

Tehran has repeatedly said that the United States’ sanctions against Iran are examples of economic terrorism.

President Hassan Rouhani said in June that the U.S. sanctions against Iran constitute examples of “crime against humanity and economic terrorism” because they have targeted ordinary people’s “lives and needs”.

“It should not be said that the U.S. has imposed sanctions on us because they are not sanctions. They are a crime against humanity. They could be called sanctions if they targeted some of our sensitive industries, but they are a crime against humanity and economic terrorism when they target the people’s lives and needs,” he said in a cabinet meeting.

Baeidinejad says Ofcom confirms receipt of Iran’s complaint

In another tweet on Wednesday, Baeidinejad said that the Office of Communications has confirmed receiving Iran’s complaint against the London-based anti-Iran TV channels.

He also noted that complaint against the BBC Persian is simultaneously being pursued through the BBC World Service.

Baeidinejad announced in November that the Iranian embassy in London had filed a complaint against the London-based anti-Iran TV channels for inciting violence in protests over the rise in the petrol price.

The ambassador said the TV channels, which also include the pro-Pahlavi Manoto TV, incite protestors to resort to violence and also broadcast false reports about rallies against an increase in the petrol price.

“Our country’s embassy in London has filed a complaint against Persian language anti-Iran TV channels of Iran International, BBC Persian and Manoto TV to Ofcom, because of the biased distortion of the recent incidents in Iran and also their invitation for the spread of violence,” Baeidinejad tweeted.

Protests were sparked in some cities in Iran against increasing the petrol price. In certain cases, the protests turned violent as some rioters clashed with police, using knives and guns.

Rioters, who were mainly hooligans, damaged public and private property and put banks and state buildings on fire.

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According To Iran News, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Ronald Reagan in 1981, said the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated the recent riots in Iran over fuel price hike.

“The riots were organized by the CIA just as in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Georgia, the “Arab Spring.” Why is this not obvious to Iran?” Craig Roberts, current chairman of the Institute for Political Economy, told Tasnim.

From early 1981 to January 1982, Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. After his time in government, he turned to journalism, holding positions of editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, the Scripps Howard News Service as well as contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine. Roberts was a professor of business administration and professor of economics at George Mason University and was the inaugural William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at Georgetown University, serving for 12 years.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: In an interview with BBC Persian on Nov. 21, the US special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said Washington is “very pleased” with protests over a fuel price hike in Iran, adding that the maximum pressure against Iran will continue. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also took to Twitter to express support for the protesters. Open support for rioters has just reinvigorated the Islamic Republic’s official narrative that the real goal the United States pursues through maximum pressure is not to bring Iran to the negotiating table but to cause “regime change” in the country. What do you think? What is behind this kind of US policy?

Roberts: The real question is: Why did the Iranian government play into Washington’s hands by raising fuel prices?

Tasnim: Reports by Iranian intelligence services say that the US and its allies in the region meddled to stoke recent unrest in Iran. They say clues have been found proving that they intervened to create the turmoil. Bahman Reyhani, a military commander in Kermanshah, said “the rioters belonged to anti-revolutionary groups and America’s intelligence services”. What are your thoughts on this?

Roberts: Washington is expert at bringing “color revolutions,” such as the Green Revolution in Iran. Most of them succeed. The real question is why do countries permit Washington-funded and organized NGOs to operate in their countries as Fifth Columns? Why are not the subversives arrested and the organizations broken up?

Tasnim: On Wednesday, the director-general of the anti-espionage department of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said a number of elements that were seeking to collect information on the riots and transfer it to foreign countries were identified and arrested before they could carry out their mission. “These elements that had received CIA-funded training in various countries to gather information under the guise of citizen-journalists had been monitored for quite a long time,” the official said. How much do you think the CIA, Mossad and Saudi spy agency were involved in the riots?

Roberts: The riots were organized by the CIA just as in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Georgia, the “Arab Spring.” Why is this not obvious to Iran?

Tasnim: Iranian officials have repeatedly said that US sanctions against Tehran have dealt a blow to the prospects of talks between Washington and Tehran. It seems that Trump administration has closed the door to diplomacy. Do you share the opinion that the White House is not interested in diplomacy when it comes to Iran?

Roberts: Washington is not interested in diplomacy in its dealings with any country, even far more powerful countries than Iran, such as Russia and China. Washington uses threats and force, not diplomacy. A person would think that Iran would know that by now.

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“The U.S. officials interviewed by the BBC portray their Iranian nemesis as having been keen to establish a relationship with them, while they systematically rebuffed him. From my modest experience on the ground in Iraq, it was just the opposite,” Carnelos wrote.

“The storytelling mirrors some of the limits of U.S. and Western policy towards Iran and, more generally, the Middle East: oversimplification and unnecessary Manichaeism,” the diplomat added.

“The documentary does not provide new information, and much of the backstory it tells was reported years ago. Its main problem is that it offers a panorama of events almost exclusively from a Western perspective. Not a single member of the IRGC, or any Iranian official, is quoted.”

Carnelos goes on to note that “this approach betrays the irrepressible Western necessity to have an enemy – an ‘other’ – a bearer of different, evil values to mobilize against.”

The Western narrative on Iran and Soleimani is overwhelmingly produced by Israeli sources, without significant fact-checking, he adds.

“There is no doubt that Soleimani is a brilliant military commander. People who have dealt with him repeatedly, such as Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Maliki’s former national security adviser, have summarized his three main characteristics: ‘frighteningly intelligent, ideologically driven and, most of all, with the quite rare [possession of] both tactical and strategic capabilities’.”

Carnelos adds that “Soleimani is not a fanatic. He has courage, humility, revolutionary commitment, and empathy towards his men. He is a strong motivator and a patient listener, facilitating dialogue with a huge network of interlocutors on the ground – qualities that his U.S., Israeli and Arab foes sometimes lack. The main source of his success is his unique ability to capitalize on the countless errors made by these same foes.”

“The main enablers of Soleimani’s ‘heroic gestures,’ and the best propagandists of his now apparently widespread and growing popular following – which could also open a political future for him in Iran – are his supposed enemies, who quite frequently turn out to be his main, and unforgivably unaware, allies.”

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