Iran to complain to UN over Obama nuclear 'threat'

Source Reuters

Iran will lodge a complaint with the United Nations about what it sees as U.S. President Barack Obama's threat to attack it with nuclear weapons, the foreign ministry said on Sunday. Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons -- something Tehran interpreted as a threat from a long-standing adversary to attack it with nuclear bombs. "The recent statement by the U.S. president ... implicitly intimidates the Iranian nation with the deployment of nuclear arms," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised meeting with military and security officials. "This statement is very strange and the world should not ignore it since in the 21st century, which is the era of support for human rights and campaigning against terrorism, the head of a country is threatening to use nuclear war." Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told the semi-official Fars news agency Iran would lodge a formal complaint to the United Nations, a move backed by a letter signed by 255 of Iran's 290 members of parliament.