British defence minister says ‘few people will mourn’ Iran’s Khamenei
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Defence Secretary John Healey also repeated the British government’s insistence that British forces were involved in purely “defensive” operations.
PHOTO: EPA
Follow our live coverage here.
LONDON – Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey said on March 1 that “few people will mourn” Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the British government’s first public response to the Iranian Supreme Leader’s death
“Iran and the regime he’s led for so long, it’s a source of evil, murdering its own citizens and sponsoring and exporting terror, including to countries like Britain,” Mr Healey told Sky News.
He added that “the concern now, of course, is this regime is lashing out... in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way, and people will be really concerned that it’s not just military targets”.
Mr Healey, who also spoke to the BBC, repeated the British government’s insistence that British forces were involved in purely “defensive” operations, with warplanes operating from Qatar and Britain’s airbase in Cyprus.
He declined to comment on reports that London had denied the United States access to British bases worldwide to conduct its attacks on Iran
“It is for the US to set out the legal basis of the action,” he told the BBC.
“Britain played no part in the strikes on Iran. We share, however, the primary aim of all allies in the region and the US that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr Healey noted that around 300 British armed forces personnel were “within several hundred yards” of drones and missiles that Iran had fired at a US military base in Bahrain
“It demonstrates how our bases, our personnel, military and civilians, at the moment, are at risk with a regime that is increasingly indiscriminate, widespread and uncontrolled in the attacks it’s mounting,” he said. AFP
