TEHRAN – Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has said that Iran has the best and bravest medical staff and does not need the United States’ doctors.

“We have the best, bravest and most efficient medical staff and we do not need the United States’ doctors,” he tweeted on Friday.

He added, “Instead of showing hypocritical sympathy and disgusting bragging, put an end to economic terrorism and medical terrorism.”

Before a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the U.S. has “greatest doctors in the world”. He added that Washington has offered Iran help in battle against the coronavirus.

“I think we have the greatest doctors in the world.  We’ve offered Iran assistance.  Iran is having a tremendous problem, and we have offered Iran assistance.  If they’d like it, we will help them. We’d be glad to help them,” the official website of the White House quoted him as saying.

Iran has denounced the U.S. for impeding effective fight against the coronavirus though its sanctions, especially medical sanctions.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has urged the international community to help lift the “inhuman” sanctions against Tehran by the United States as Iran is in the midst of the campaign to contain the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

In separate letters to president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, secretary-general of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly and also parliament speakers of the Asian and Islamic countries, Larijani expressed regret over the United States’ “inhuman” sanctions against Iran which is creating impediments in the battle against the coronavirus’s spread.

He urged the international community to adopt “principled” stance for immediate removal of sanctions against Iran, especially ban on medicine medical supplies.

Iran is currently battling the world’s deadliest outbreak of the coronavirus outside China, where it originated.

The coronavirus outbreak has been labelled a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold in two weeks. He said he was "deeply concerned" by "alarming levels of inaction".

NA/PA