Iranian lawmakers on Saturday branded the
US troops and the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as terrorist groups, according to
a statement released by the Iranian state media.
The statement said that more than 200 Iranian parliament members
(MPs) labeled the US army and the CIA as terrorists since they
support terrorism. It is apparently a sharp reaction tit for tat
over the decisions of their US counterparts calling for the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization."
"They (the US army and the CIA) support Israel's state terrorism
in its crackdown on Palestinian and Lebanese people, trained
Al-Qaida and Taliban and established secret prisons in Europe,
torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib," added the
statement.
Moreover, the Iranian MPs demanded the UN to intervene in the
"global problem of US prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and
secret jails in other countries."
The statement was just released three days after the US Senate
and the House of Representatives called on the US State Department
to brand Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist
organization.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini
condemned the action, saying "putting armed forces of the UN member
countries on the list of terrorist groups is a strange and
unprecedented act which lacks any value or credit."
Washington, however, has accused Iran of trying to develop
nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran
has denied the US charges and insisted that its nuclear program is
for peaceful purposes only.
(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2007)
