Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday that Tehran could never accept aid from its arch-enemy, the United States, to combat the novel coronavirus, referring to US leaders as “charlatans”. On 22 March, Iran officially recorded 123 new deaths from the virus, bringing the country’s total COVID-19 death count to 1,556 and the total case count to 20,610.
Khamenei echoed the Chinese conspiracy about the origin of the virus, directly attacking Washington in the televised address, claiming that the virus "is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians, which they have obtained through different means". He also warned that nobody trusts the US because they “are capable of bringing to our country a drug that will keep the virus alive and prevent its eradication”.
US President Donald Trump had said on 29 February that Washington would be willing to help Iran fight the virus on request from its leaders, despite the “maximum pressure” campaign and crippling sanctions it imposed on Tehran over its nuclear programme. At the same time, on Sunday the Trump administration severely criticized France for its “unilateral” decision to release Jalal Rohollahnejad, an Iranian national wanted by the US for his alleged violations of American sanctions on Iran, as part of an apparent prisoner swap with Khamenei’s government.
But many Iranian health officials and lawmakers are, in a surprising turn of events, challenging the Supreme Leader’s efforts to minimize the spread of the pandemic. Massoud Pezeshkian, the first Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and a former health minister, recently critiqued the Iranian administration for projecting inaccurate statistics. “The (official) numbers are not real because there are a number of patients who show no symptoms. We locate 95 (infected) people and two die, so we say two have died out of 100, whereas it may be that 2 percent of 10,000 have died,” he said.
According to a report provided by the country’s opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the real death toll recorded across all 31 provinces has allegedly exceeded 8,800.
Iran has been one of the worst-hit countries by the COVID-19 illness, following Italy, Spain, and China.
Image Source: The National
Iran's Supreme Leader Refuses US Aid, Backs China on Coronavirus Origin Conspiracy Theory
March 23, 2020
