The U.S. Disarmament Ambassador has dismissed a $3 million reward offered by a member of the Islamic Republic parliament on Tuesday as "ridiculous" and said it was a sign of "terrorist underpinnings" of the Iranian regime.
The reward is "just ridiculous but it gives you a sense of the terrorist underpinnings of that regime and that regime needs to change its behavior," Robert Wood told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday.
In an official session of the legislature on Tuesday Ahmad Hamzeh who represents a constituency in Kerman Province announced a $3 million reward for killing U.S. President Donald Trump in a speech in praise of Qassem Soleimani, the Qods Force commander who was killed by an American drone strike in Baghdad on January 3.
Soleimani was a native of Kerman and Hamzeh announced “on behalf of the people of Kerman” to pay a $3 million cash bounty to whoever “kills Trump”.
Hamzeh, who is a member of parliament’s Health Commission, eulogized Soleimani saying, “You deserved to become a martyr in the hands of the most miserable person” and that is what happened.
Addressing Trump, the Iranian lawmaker threatened that American interests will be harmed as retaliation for the targeted killing in Iraq. “The martyr Soleimani is more dangerous than Hajj Soleimani. You will taste this. If you consider a preventive attack a legal action according to international law, will your embassies be safe in the region?”, Hamzeh retorted, adding, “Do we have the right to blow them up?”
He also threatened American bases, saying that U.S. forces in the region are a danger to “our interests” and “Do you think we have the legal right to blow up all your bases?”
Going a step further, the lawmaker reminded the United States of shooting down an Iranian airliner in the 1980s over the Persian Gulf and reminded Trump that “tens of your civilian planes pass by our borders every day”.
Hamzeh also told the parliament session that If Iran had nuclear weapons today, it would be immune to threats and added, “We should increase the range of our missiles and make them capable of carrying unconventional warheads. This is our natural right”.
After Soleimani’s killing, Iranian officials vowed a hard response to the U.S. act and on January 8 carried out a missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq. Since then the rhetoric of revenge has been somewhat muted.
