Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has rejected remarks by US Secretary of State Rubio linking regional instability to Iran-backed groups, arguing that American policies are the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East, Al Jazeera reports.

“No one will be fooled,” he writes on X, together with a clip of Rubio condemning Iraq-based armed groups, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas.

“We can’t have a peaceful region so long as American militarism and interventionism persist, and their occupying proxy [Israel] continues, with absolute impunity, to inflict endless wars across the region and perpetrate genocide, terror violence and every atrocities,” Baghaei adds.