Iran condemns Donald Trump’s peace plan, calls it ‘treason of century’

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (Photo: IANS)


Iran said on Tuesday that the US President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan amounted to the “treason of the century” and was bound to fail.

The foreign ministry said in a statement, “The shameful peace plan imposed by America on the Palestinians is the treason of the century and doomed to fail”.

Earlier on Tuesday, President Trump presented his long-awaited Middle East peace plan, envisaging a two-state solution but keeping Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.

Taking to Twitter, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, “The “so-called ‘Vision for Peace’ is simply the dream project of a bankruptcy-ridden real estate developer”, in reference to Trump.

“But it is a nightmare for the region and the world and, hopefully, a wake-up call for all the Muslims who have been barking up the wrong tree,” Zarif further posted on Twitter, whose country does not recognise Israel.

Announcing the plan from the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing next to him, Trump said his plan “could be the last opportunity” for Palestinians, which, he said, “are in poverty and violence, exploited by those seeking to use them as pawns to advance terrorism and extremism”.

Under the plan, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s “undivided capital,” Trump said, raising eyebrows after he had said that the capital of the Palestinian state would be in “eastern Jerusalem,” where the United States would “proudly open an embassy.”

He said making peace between Israel and the Palestinians “may be the most difficult challenge of all,” noting that many former US presidents had failed to achieve that.

The plan builds on a 30-page economic plan for the West Bank and Gaza that was unveiled last June and which the Palestinians have also rejected.