According to a report in the semi-official Fars News Agency (FNA), Iran’s foreign ministry has blamed Israel for the recent massacre of Syrian civilians in Houla, claiming that “we palpably feel the Zionist regime’s hand in Syria’s internal developments.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast made the claim in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, and added that since Israel most benefits from the tumult in Syria, “[a]ny crime committed can be traced back to the [Zionist] regime’s hirelings.”
Last Friday, Syrian armed forces killed over 100 civilians, most of whom were summarily executed. The U.N. human rights office found that nearly half of the victims were children. The article by FNA identified the perpetrators as “terrorists” who “assaulted pro-Assad civilians and military.”
Turning to the plan proposed by the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, Mehman-Parast expressed his government’s support for it, but lamented that “[t]he Zionist regime’s backers aspire to the failure of Annan’s plan.”
The article concluded with the assertion that “Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of stirring unrests in Syria once again.”
So much for FNA‘s claim to be “Iran’s leading independent news agency.”
