TEHRAN - Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a veteran MP sitting on the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, has said that the United States’ offer to help Iran in the campaign against the coronavirus is “nonsensical”.

“If Donald Trump [the U.S. president] feels sympathy for the Iranian people, he must remove the cruel sanctions so that the people can have access to the needed medications,” he told ISNA in an interview published on Monday.

 He noted that what Trump says has no credibility.

Trump said Saturday he was ready to aid Iran with its outbreak of novel coronavirus if the country asked for assistance.

 “If we can help the Iranians with this problem, we are certainly willing to do so... All they have to do is ask. We will have great professionals over there,” France 24 quoted Trump as saying at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington.

 ‘U.S. offer of help to Iran is propaganda’

 Deputy Chairman of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Kamal Dehghani also told ISNA in an interview published on Monday that the U.S. offer of help to Iran is just propaganda.

 There is no good intention behind Washington’s offer, he noted.

 He added that if the U.S. had any good intention, it would have removed sanctions against Iran.

 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also claimed that Washington is ready to help Iran in battle against the coronavirus. However, Tehran has denounced Pompeo’s offer as “ridiculous” and “hypocritical” and said it is part of a political and psychological game against the Islamic Republic.

 “The claim of helping Iran in the fight against coronavirus, made by a country that has exerted massive pressures on the Iranian people with its economic terrorism and has even blocked the (Iranian) purchase of medicine and medical equipment, is a ridiculous claim and a political-psychological game,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Friday.

 “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran is in close contact with many countries in order to satisfy the country’s pharmaceutical and health demands and to combat the coronavirus, and so far a considerable part of the country’s critical needs, including 100,000 (COVID-19) diagnostic kits, surgery masks, medical ventilators, etc. have been supplied from the friendly countries, and other consignments are also on the way which will be publicized in due time,” he stated.

 The fight against coronavirus, which has now become a pandemic and has engulfed many countries, requires a global resolve and widespread international cooperation, not theatrical moves that are made with political purposes and the abuse of the suffering and pains of the patients and those hurt, the spokesperson added.

NA/PA