Iran Parliament Speaker ups anti-US rhetoric

Islam Mohamed

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said that his country would maintain its policy of countering the United States and avenging the killing of the late Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.

In his first public address as Parliament Speaker, Ghalibaf added on June 31 that Soleimani’s assassination by the United States would not go unpunished.

Hegemony

Radicals impose their control on the Iranian parliament following suspected rigging during the elections that took place in February this year. Voter participation in the elections was the lowest in years.

Ghalibaf selected to be the speaker of the Iranian parliament, given his extremist record.

He said negotiations with America would be harmful, describing it as leading an axis of arrogance. He vowed to follow in Soleimani’s footsteps by strengthening what he described as the “axis of resistance.”

“The new parliament is the Qasem Soleimani parliament,” Ghalibaf said. “It is committed to completing the strengthening of the axis of resistance, a project Soleimani started.”

Ghalibaf was keen from the beginning to show that the current parliamentary session would be different from the previous one which witnessed strong presence by the reformists who backed the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Ghalibaf said the parliament has the right to advise the government, in the light of instructions by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

He noted that backing pro-Iran militias in the region, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthi militia in Yemen, is a national duty for all Iranians.