Iranupdated 1h ago2 min read
Esmaeil Baghaei Slams Ed Miliband Over UK Portrayal Of Iran As Aggressor
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Baghaei accuses UK of provoking regional chaos through unlawful interventions and insecurity in West Asia. Britain described Iran as aggressor; Tehran says accusation distorts reality and reverses victim-perpetrator roles.
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Baghaei rebukes Miliband
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei lashed out at British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband for portraying Iran as the “aggressor” after what Baghaei described as “two rounds of unlawful aggression against it in just nine months.” Baghaei wrote on his X account that “The chaos engulfing our region is the consequence of unlawful interventions, including those backed or contributed to by the UK,” framing the dispute as a reversal of “victim and aggressor.”
Baghaei said Miliband’s stance “is a grotesque reversal of victim and aggressor,” and he added that it “marks yet another low in the UK’s long record of hostile campaigns against Iran.” Baghaei also likened Miliband’s framing to “portraying Nazi Germany as a ‘defender of peace’ while casting the UK and its allies in WWII as the aggressors.”
Miliband, Rubio, and condolences
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on October 13 that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offered condolences over the death of a US citizen in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia, and discussed what he described as ending Iran’s aggression, including in the Strait of Hormuz. Baghaei responded to those remarks by arguing that the UK government cannot conceal its destructive role in spread of insecurity in the West Asia by deflecting blame.
Baghaei wrote that it was “For the UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband to portray Iran as the ‘aggressor’ after two rounds of unlawful aggression against it in just nine months, even as it pursued negotiations,” calling it “a grotesque reversal of victim and aggressor.” Baghaei added that the claim was “as absurd as portraying Nazi Germany as a “defender of peace” while casting the UK and its allies in WWII as the aggressors,” tying the dispute to a broader historical analogy.
Competing narratives and escalation
PressTV said Baghaei condemned Miliband’s branding of Iran the “aggressor” and described the claim as a “grotesque distortion of reality” after “two rounds of unlawful US-Israeli military aggression against the Islamic Republic in just nine months.” Baghaei said the chaos engulfing West Asia was “the direct consequence of unlawful interventions, including those backed or contributed to by the United Kingdom,” and he reiterated that portraying Iran as the aggressor while it pursued diplomatic channels “marks yet another low in London’s long record of hostile campaigns against Iran.”
PressTV cited Baghaei’s reference to the “12-day US-Israeli war of June 2025” and a “subsequent 40-day offensive that began on February 28, 2026,” and it said Iran exercised its “inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.” PressTV also said Iranian officials stated that systematic attacks on “schools, hospitals, and residential areas” amount to genocide, and it asserted that London authorized the United States to use British military facilities, including “RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia,” for operations framed as “defensive.”