Iranian official denies plans to interfere with US election
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is
denying his country would interfere with the upcoming U.S. presidential
election and says his government doesn’t have a preference in the race.
In an interview to air Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” Zarif also accuses the U.S. of initiating a cyberwar with his country
and warns that “any war the United States starts it won’t be able to finish.”
The interview took place in New York, which Zarif
visited this past week to attend meetings at the United Nations. NBC provided a
partial transcript on Saturday.
When “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd noted
that U.S. intelligence included Iran among the countries attempting to
interfere with the U.S. election, Zarif responded, “We don’t have a preference
in your election to intervene in that election.”
“We don’t interfere in the internal affairs of
another country,” Zarif said later. “But there is a cyber war going on.”
The Iranian official cited Stuxnet, a computer virus
that is widely believed to be a joint creation of the U.S. and Israel and is
blamed for disrupting thousands of Iranian centrifuges in an effort to damage
its nuclear program.
“The United States started that cyber war, with
attacking our nuclear facilities in a very dangerous, irresponsible way that
could’ve killed millions of people. You remember Stuxnet?” Zarif said.
He added: “So there is a cyber war ... and Iran is
engaged in that cyber war. But the United — any war that the United States
starts, it won’t be able to finish.”
