Iran’s foreign ministry said yesterday it saw no difference between Israel’s political parties and called them all aggressors, semi-official Mehr News Agency reported after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election victory.
Netanyahu, whose Likud party unexpectedly won Israeli elections on Tuesday, warned US President Barack Obama’s administration this month that it was negotiating a “bad deal” with Iran over its nuclear programme.
The US and its allies suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes, but Israel regards it as a threat to its existence and refuses to rule out military action.
“For us there is no difference between the Zionist regime’s political parties. They are all aggressors in nature,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Marizeh Afkham told reporters at a weekly news conference in Tehran, Mehr reported. Since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran refuses to recognise Israel.
Israel has voted for burying the peace process
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders yesterday called for international pressure on Israel and support for their unilateral moves toward statehood after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election win.
Netanyahu’s surprise victory, after pledging in the final days of the campaign that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was in power, left Palestinians grim about prospects for a negotiated solution to a decades-old conflict.
“It is clear Israel has voted for burying the peace process, against the two-state choice and for the continuation of occupation and settlement,” Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel that collapsed in April, told Voice of Palestine radio.
Seeking to shore up right-wing votes and saying that Islamist militants would move into any territory relinquished by Israel, Netanyahu also vowed to keep building settlements on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Palestinian leaders said a fourth term for the Likud party leader meant they must press forward with unilateral steps toward independence, including filing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.