BRUSSELS: European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday that the United States remains Europe’s biggest ally, after the Trump administration said in a major strategy document that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” and may one day lose its status as a reliable ally. The new US National Security Strategy, posted on the White House website overnight Thursday-to-Friday, denounced the European Union as anti-democratic and Europe as lacking in self-confidence, and said the goal of the US should be “to help Europe correct its current trajectory.”
“There’s a lot of criticism, but I think some of it is also true, if you look at Europe, it has been underestimating its own power toward Russia,” Kallas said on a panel at the Doha Forum in Qatar.
“We should be more self-confident,” she said, adding that the “US is still our biggest ally.”
“I think we haven’t always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there. We are the biggest allies and we should stick together,” Kallas said.
US remains biggest ally and Europe should be more self-confident, Kallas says
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US remains biggest ally and Europe should be more self-confident, Kallas says
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
