Iran UN envoy blasts US over ‘grotesque’ meddling

TEHRAN– In a letter to United Nations on Wed., Iran’s UN ambassador condemned the US brazen support for protests in Iran, saying its grotesque way of meddling in the country’s internal affairs is a violation of international law.

Gholamali Khoshroo made the remarks in a Wednesday letter to the UN Security Council and to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, upon instructions from Iran’s Government and pursuant to his previous letter dated 19 June 2017 regrading US interventionist policy, according to the Mehr News Agancy.

In the letter, Khoshroo drew attention to the most recent and wide-ranging attempts by the US to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran; “against the backdrop of continuous attempts by previous US administrations to disrupt the course of normal political, social and cultural life in Iran in the past several decades, starting from the coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime minister in 1953, the current US administration has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations,” he said. 

He went on to add, “in the past several days, the US administration, led by the US President, has stepped up its acts of intervention in a grotesque way in Iran’s internal affairs under the pretext of providing support for sporadic protests, which in several instances were hijacked by infiltrators to include acts of senseless homicide – including the murder of a 12-year-old boy and his father, blind violence and rampant destruction.”

“The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts,” he said. “The US Department of State went so far as admitting that the US Government wants to encourage protestors in Iran to change their Government, admitting that the US is engaged in interfering with the internal affairs of Iran through Facebook and Twitter.”

Khoshroo went on to note the open hostility of Trump’s administration towards Iranian people, including inter alia by banning ordinary Iranian citizens from entering the United States, as well as the country’s violation of its own commitments under the JCPOA by continuing to impose unlawful sanctions against Iran and by taking every possible devious measure to prevent Iranian people from enjoying the economic dividends of US sanction-lifting obligations under the agreement.

The Iranian envoy stressed that “the right to protest is recognized and guaranteed in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, adding “in exercising this constitutionally-sanctioned principle, protests, demonstrations and sit-ins occur almost on a daily basis by groups of individuals representing various interests in different corners of the country.”

“As in all other democracies, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to protect this right as well as the safety and security of its citizens against acts of violence and destruction,” he added.

Khoshroo further condemned the “flagrant acts of intervention currently undertaken by the US Government” as in contravention of “peremptory norms of international law and in defiance to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter.”

He went on to call on all states to condemn such dangerous statements and policies and urge the US Government to act responsibly and to adhere to principles of the UN Charter and international law.

M.Wassouf