Sir, – Since the Islamic Republic of Iran attacks Israel in every international forum it can and openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish State, we find it appropriate to take issue with the words of the Ambassador of Iran Javad Kachoueian ("Iran seeks better relations with West, says envoy", May 28th).
The Ambassador claims that Iran has the right to enrich uranium and expand its nuclear programme, ostensibly for peaceful purposes. It is a pity that in his interview he did not mention other things that Iran apparently also thinks it has a right to do, such as execute homosexuals and Bahai’s, torture dissidents, export terror groups around the world such as Hizbullah and Hamas, blow up a Jewish community centre as it did in Buenos Aires in 1984, and serve as the chief buttress of the murderous Assad regime over the past few years – thereby ensuring that the Syrian civil war has become a ghastly quagmire with over 160,000 corpses and counting.
He refers to the election of Hassan Rouhani to the Iranian presidency last year. It might be better to use the word selection, as Mr Rouhani was one of only eight candidates out of 680 who were approved to run by Ayatollah Khamenei and his cronies who really run the country.
As for the alleged 2005 fatwa by Ayatollah Khamenei condemning the building of nuclear weapons that the Ambassador refers to, alas trying to find it is like trying to track down the unicorn because although many have referred to it no one has ever seen the text of this mysterious fatwa.
Based on long and painful experience, it is wise to judge Iran by its actions, not its spurious rhetoric. – Yours, etc,
Dr DEREK O’FLYNN,
Press Officer,
Embassy of Israel,
Pembroke Road,
Dublin 4.
