Iranian Doctors Urge Neighbors to destroy “US biological laboratories” Amid Coronavirus Fears

A group of 101 Iranian doctors has penned a letter addressed to the leaders of Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan to take ‘immediate action’ to destroy “all of the US biological laboratories” in their countries amid fears that the coronavirus pandemic may have been spread deliberately as a form of biological warfare, Press TV has reported, citing the letter.

“We, as a group of Iranian physicians specializing in infectious and pulmonary diseases, asthma and allergy are witnessing that many of our compatriots are infected with the virus, and like all doctors across the world, we are trying day and night to cure and save them,” the letter states.

“But there has been plenty of evidence in both the world’s leading scientific articles and in the media, citing geneticists and biologists and WikiLeaks documents, that reinforces speculation about the COVID-19 manipulation in biological laboratories and a biological attack by the US through the virus against rival countries,” the letter continues.

As evidence, the doctors cite the recent questions asked by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian about the virus’s origins, and speculation that “it might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” President Trump dismissed those claims Tuesday, calling them “false” and saying that the US military “didn’t give [COVID-19] to anybody.”

In their letter, Iranian doctors accuse the United States of having a history of using biological weapons, and suggest that given its habit of withdrawing from international agreements and treaties, the US could “defy” international agreements aimed at controlling the development of biological weapons, such as the Geneva Protocol and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons.

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Shamkhani tweeted that the United States should “respond to international inquiries about America’s role in creating and spreading the coronavirus” instead of “falsely accusing Iran and China.” According to Shamkhani, “blame games” are the “typical US way of escaping accountability.”