Following President Joe Biden’s Middle East tour, Iran says the United States seeks to foment crisis in the region through its policy of Iranophobia. 

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani made the remarks on July 16, in reaction to Biden’s address to a summit of regional Arab states in the Saudi city of Jeddah, accusing the Islamic Republic of destabilizing activities in the region. 

Rejecting the US president’s remarks as unacceptable and unfounded, Kanaani said, "Such groundless allegations are in line with Washington’s policy to incite sedition and create tension in the region... by resorting to its failed policy of Iranophobia.”

“False accusations that the United States levels against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program while turning a blind eye to several decades of the Zionist regime’s deception as a regime that is not a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while possessing the biggest nuclear arsenal in the region, are a major sign of hypocrisy of the US government,” he added.

Biden said during his tour that "Around the world, we’re seeing efforts to undermine the rules-based order: with China’s increasingly coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific and beyond; with Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war against its neighboring Ukraine; and with Iran’s destabilizing activities," emphasizing that “It’s only becoming clear to me how closely interwoven America’s interests are with the successes of the Middle East…We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”