Iran's UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo accused the US and Israel of seeking "to remove the Palestinian issue that is central to all the conflicts in the Middle East from these open debates."
"Today we heard unsubstantiated allegations against my country which I categorically reject as misleading propaganda campaigning against Iran and its role in the region," Khoshroo told the council.
The US pushed the UN Security Council to focus on "illegal and dangerous behaviour" by Iran and Lebanese group Hezbollah in the Middle East, an accusation that Iran dismissed as "misleading propaganda."
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the council that its monthly meetings on the Middle East - traditionally focused on Israel and the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon - regularly turned into "Israel-bashing sessions."
"Iran is using Hezbollah to advance its regional aspirations. They are working together to expand extremist ideologies in the Middle East. That is a threat that should be dominating our discussion at the Security Council," the AP cited her as saying.
As for the US accusations, Iran's UN Ambassador dismissed them as "unsubstantiated allegations ... designed and perpetrated hysterically by Israel and certain countries in the region including those who fully supported Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran." Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations backed Saddam in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
