Iran Welcomes Haley’s Surprise Resignation

Date: 10 October 2018 - 21:34

News ID: ۵۸۳۶۹

UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) -- Iran’s mission to the United Nations welcomed Tuesday’s surprise resignation of U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, one of the Trump administration’s most vocal opponents of the Islamic Republic.
"We do not know who she was or what she was about, but she was a serious problem at the UN with her uninformed statements & her causing the isolation of U.S.,” Alireza Miryousefi, the mission’s press secretary, wrote on his Twitter account.
He also quipped "there is no new sheriff in town,” referring to remarks Haley made at the 2017 annual meeting of the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby.
"For anyone that says you can’t get anything done at the UN, they need to know there’s a new sheriff in town,” she said at the time, promising to defend the occupying regime of Israel and oppose Iran at the world body.
At the UN, Haley pushed member states to enforce U.S. sanctions on Iran as part of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and also criticized its missile defense program.
In one noticeable instance, Haley gave a bizarre press conference in front of alleged missile parts she claimed were provided to Yemen by Iran, a charge denied by Tehran.
Gholamali Khoshroo, Iran’s envoy to the UN, said Tuesday the U.S.’s isolation in the international community had increased during Haley’s tenure because of the U.S. pursuit of unilateralism.
He described Haley as "one of the anti-Iranian figures of the United States government, who has always taken strong stance against Iran.” Khoshroo also said that Haley had failed to push the world away from supporting Palestinians.
Iran’s comments ran in stark contrast to reactions from politicians in Occupied Palestine, where the U.S. envoy was widely praised for her defense of the Zionist regime at the UN.
Haley announced her unexpected decision at the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump.
She gave no reason for the move or what her next step would be except to say she did not plan to run in 2020 and would campaign for Trump’s reelection.
At the United Nations, she was a vocal defender of Trump’s "America First” foreign policy, which has challenged multilateral approaches to the world’s biggest problems.
During her tenure, the United States broke with traditional UN positions on the Palestinians, withdrew from UNESCO and cut funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and abandoned the UN Human Rights Council as biased against the occupying regime of Israel.
Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Karen Pierce, told AFP she was "very disappointed” by Haley’s resignation, which she said learned through media reports.
Ashish Pradhan, an expert with the International Crisis Group, said Haley’s departure raised the prospect of an even more hawkish replacement.
"The fear now is whether the person who replaces her will take an even tougher line against the UN, especially with National Security Adviser John Bolton now in the White House,” he said.