Hamas leader deplores west, US hostile policy on Iran

A senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, lashed out at the West, specially the US, for its hostile attitude towards Iran, and said Tehran's continued support for Palestine and not its nuclear issue, is the cause of this animosity. “The cause of the animosity of the West, specially the US, towards Iran is not Iran’s nuclear program, but Tehran’s support for the Palestinian resistance and Hamas movement,” Issa Nashar, a senior advisor to Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh told FNA in Gaza on Monday. Nashar reiterated that Iranian officials have supported Palestine since the onset of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Iranian officials have on different occasions supported the Palestinian cause and their freedom from the yoke of Israel. Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underlined that the UN should admit Palestine as a full member state, and voiced the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)’s support for the move. “We are ready to support Palestine in international communities,” Zarif said, addressing a meeting of the NAM’s Palestine Committee on the sidelines of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday. In November, the UN overwhelmingly voted to grant Palestine non-member observer status. Israel strongly opposes Palestinian statehood, despite the notion's widespread international support. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.