UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) -- Iran has expressed readiness to help the United Nations General Assembly regulate cyberspace, saying the digital world and its related technologies should solely be used for peaceful purposes.
In an address to the UN Security Council debate on “Maintenance of international peace and security: Cyber security,” Iran’s UN Ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi said cyberspace provides “golden opportunities” for human beings to continuously enhance all aspects of their lives.
“Such an outstanding enabler must therefore not only be promoted throughout the world particularly in developing countries but also be protected against all threats,” he said.
In recent years, he said, the world has witnessed “a worrying trend of systematic accusations” leveled by some states with political motives against one another regarding cyber-attacks or similar activities in cyberspace.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is itself a victim of cyber-attacks by the malicious Stuxnet computer virus that was created jointly by the United States and Israel to damage Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities, Takht-Ravanchi said.
In 2010, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies unleashed a computer worm called Stuxnet on Iranian uranium-enrichment plants in an attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. The Washington Post reported two years later that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), its spy service CIA, and the occupying regime of Israel’s military had worked together to launch Stuxnet against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The act of sabotage was followed by Mossad’s assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists.
World countries, Takht-Ravanchi said, “must refrain from the threat or use of force within or through the cyberspace environment.”
The countries “must also exercise due control over cyberspace-related companies and platforms
under their jurisdiction, and take appropriate measures to make them accountable for their behavior in the ITC environment, including for violating national sovereignty, security and public order of other States. At any rate, States are responsible for their internationally wrongful acts within or through cyberspace,” he said.
“Cyberspace and its related means, techniques and technologies must be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, and to that end, States must act cooperatively, responsibly and in full accordance with applicable international law,” he added.
“We share the views that consideration of cyberspace-related issues must be continued in the General Assembly. For its part, the Islamic Republic of Iran…stands ready to contribute to the Assembly’s efforts in developing principles and norms required for cyberspace.”