TEHRAN: Caretaker Foreign Minister of Iran, Ali Bagheri Kani has said that Iran will exercise its “legitimate and inherent right” to punish the “criminal Zionists”, Iranian state media reported on Friday.
IRNA reported that Kani made the remarks during a phone call with his Algerian counterpart Ahmed Attaf which came two days after the assassination of Hamas top leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.
Haniyeh was assassinated in a predawn attack in Tehran on Wednesday as he was in Iran to attend the oath taking of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Iranian diplomat lauded Algeria’s support for holding an extraordinary UN Security Council meeting to evaluate the Zionist terrorist measure and also stressed the necessity for the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries to convene in an extraordinary meeting on the issue.
He also welcomed the proposal of Iran for an OIC foreign ministerial meeting and said that his country strongly denounced the Zionist assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran as a breach of Iran’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
The killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an attack on Wednesday in Tehran has aggravated fears of a regional conflict.
Many countries including Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, China, Russia, Egypt and Jordan strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader in Theran, Iran.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced a day of national mourning over the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
