‘U.S., Zionists Behind Anti-Iran Draft Resolution’

Date: 19 February 2017 - 20:22

News ID: ۳۶۹۶۱

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Tehran says Sweden's plans to submit the UN a draft resolution on Iran's human rights record is in line with a U.S. and Israeli-led campaign aimed at promoting Iranophobia.
"The U.S. and the Tel Aviv regime along with several of their allies have presented joint draft resolutions against Iran to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva due to a negative atmosphere against our country, aimed at creating a wave of Iranophobia since around seven years ago,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi.
The remarks came after Sweden unveiled plans to introduce a UN draft resolution on Iran’s human rights record on March 10.
Qassemi condemned the planned move and stressed that such actions are unfair, false, and are out of touch with the realities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has already denounced "political manipulation” of human rights by Western countries against the world’s independent nations.
"Such moves are made while most of these countries have simply shut their eyes to the killing of innocent people in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and the atrocities of the regional supporters of terrorism,” the spokesman added, slamming West's double-standard approach to human rights issues.
Qassemi emphasized that Sweden’s anti-Iran draft resolution had nothing to do with a recent trip of Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to Tehran earlier in the month.

Canada Court Order
Qassemi also rejected a recent ruling issued by Canada’s Ontario Superior Court of Justice against Iran, saying the verdict violates international law.
"This ruling contravenes the basic principles of the legal impunity of governments and their assets, and is unacceptable,” he said on Sunday.
Justice Glenn Hainey ruled on February 8 that the Islamic Republic had to pay $300,000 in legal costs to those who claim to be victims of Iranian support for resistance groups.
The plaintiffs had sought compensation in the Ontario court under Canada’s Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. The verdict has given Iran 30 days to pay the sum.
Qassemi said the Islamic Republic has already conveyed its expression of formal protest to the Canadian government and reserved the right to take political and legal measures in that regard.
In June 2016, the same court ordered $13 million in non-diplomatic Iranian assets to be given to three groups of plaintiffs.
The decision was similar to U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in April 2016 to hand over $2 billion in Iran’s frozen assets to American families of those killed in the 1983 bombing of U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani announced at that time that the country had filed a lawsuit against the U.S. with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
Earlier this month, Iran’s Presidential Office said in a statement that the lawsuit had been officially put in motion.
Washington’s seizure of Iran’s assets is against the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights which was signed by the two countries in August 1955 – referred to as the 1955 Treaty – and is "still effective," the statement added.