Iran blasts US for meddling remarks on election

Press TV – May 26, 2013

Tehran has criticized Secretary of State John Kerry and other US officials for their interfering remarks about Iran’s upcoming presidential election.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday that according to the Algiers Accords, the United States has agreed not to meddle in Iran’s internal affairs.

The United States’ support of democracy is just a subterfuge and is all a show, he added.

It would be in Washington’s interest to abide by international law and to stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, he observed.

But unfortunately, US officials know very little about Iran’s electoral process, the Iranian foreign minister stated.

He went on to say that the US should accept that every country has its own electoral process, which is based on the country’s laws.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian foreign minister pointed to the contradiction between Washington’s self-proclaimed concerns for people’s democratic rights and its disregard for the results of the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections and condoning of the Israeli regime’s apprehension and abduction of Palestinians’ democratically elected legislators and acts of aggressions against the Gaza Strip.

“They (US officials) will have to answer to the public opinion that to what attitude have democracy and the rights of the people in this issue been sacrificed to?”

The Iranian foreign minister also questioned the legitimacy of the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of former US President George W. Bush after the 2000 presidential election.

He also cast doubt on the fairness of the US Electoral College, which allows about one fourth of the states, which are the most populous, to determine the outcome of presidential elections.

Salehi’s comments came a day after Kerry criticized the Guardian Council, Iran’s highest electoral supervisory body according to the Constitution, for not approving hundreds of candidates.

The US secretary of state made the remarks during a visit to Israel on Friday.

Kerry also accused the Guardian Council of choosing candidates that represent the interests of the Iranian establishment.

Last Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Araqchi censured Washington for making “baseless remarks” about Iran’s electoral process and interfering in its internal affairs.

Araqchi was responding to US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell, who had criticized Iran’s Guardian Council over its vetting process, in which hundreds of presidential hopefuls were not approved.