Senior cleric likens INSTEX to ‘a bitter joke’

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Tehran's provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami said that the financial mechanism established by European countries dubbed as INSTEX is like a ‘bitter joke’.

Addressing the Friday prayers sermon in Tehran, he lashed out at the remarks of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, saying that the French official is lying about efforts to save the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) after the US exit.

“No, you were not beside us. And this financial channel that you created is deceitful and is more like a bitter joke,” Ayatollah Khatami said.

In interventionist remarks on Thursday, Le Drian said that European counties’ efforts to keep JCPOA alive is not a ‘blank check’ for Iran with regard to human rights violation claims.

“Shame on you! You kill and blind your own people and then talk about human rights? … Do you even understand what human rights is? You are at the frontline of violating human rights,” senior Iranian cleric noted, adding that Iran does not want any blank check and will resist to safeguard its interests.

In late January 2018, European signatories of JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) announced the establishment of a special trade mechanism dubbed as INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) in a bid to save JCPOA after the withdrawal of the United States from it.

Elsewhere Ayatollah Khatami also touched upon the Christchurch terror attack in New Zealand which claimed lives of 50 Muslims while they were peacefully saying prayers last Friday.

The terrorist himself clearly said that he is a racist and a follower of Trump, Khatami added.

He also condemned western countries for not labeling the attack as an act of terror, saying, “if Muslims are killed, they will not call it a terrorist attack, but if their dogs or cats are killed, they label it as a terrorist attack.”

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