Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has taken a jibe at the UAE, saying that countries which “have entrusted their stability to Washington and Tel Aviv have ultimately been left alone with confusion in their domestic and foreign policies”.

In a series of posts on X, Velayati said “geography does not change with declarations” and reaffirmed that the islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa “have been Iranian and will remain Iranian”.

“A country whose political lifespan doesn’t even reach half a century claims from the United Nations podium about islands that have been registered with the name of Iran in historical documents and maps of past centuries,” he wrote, referring to the UAE, which claims the islands.

“One week after the warm reception of Netanyahu, speaking of ‘Arabs’ rights’ and ‘Islamic solidarity’ is more a contradiction than a claim. Public opinion, from Cairo to Beirut, judges this duplicity,” the Iranian official added.

“Regional experience has shown that imported security has an expiration date.”