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US-UN-IRAN-RUSSIAN-ENVOY
US harms UN SC’s authority by convening meeting on Iran: Russian envoy
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6, 2018 (BSS/TASS) – The United States misuses the
platform of the UN Security Council and undermines its authority as the main
body responsible for maintaining international peace, Russia’s UN envoy
Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the Security Council’s meeting on
protests in Iran on Friday.
“Regrettably, today we are witnesses again to how the United States
misuses the platform of the UN Security Council,” he said. “Why does the US,
a permanent member of the Security Council and one of the co-authors of the
UN Charter, undermine the authority of the UN Security Council as the main
body responsible for maintaining international peace and security? It is
clear to one and all that the proposed theme for discussion does not
correlate with Security Council’s prerogatives.”
He warned that by calling such meetings the US “wastes the Security
Council’s energy.”
“Instead of focusing on the solution of acute crises in Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea and Africa you suggest meddling in the
internal affairs of other states. We do not want to be accomplices to
destabilization in Iran or elsewhere,” Nebenzya said. He urged all
counterparts in the UN Security Council to “discuss in detail the Middle East
settlement, including the Palestinian issue.”
“If your logic is to be followed, Security Council meetings should have
been called after the well-known events in Ferguson, Missouri, or when
violence was used against Occupy Wall Street demonstrations on Manhattan,”
Nebenzya told the United States’ UN ambassador Nikki Haley. “Or, possibly,
let us call a UN Security Council meeting when a tide of demonstrations
sweeps some Western country?”
Nebenzya recalled that Russia had drawn attention more than once to the
fact “far-fetched excuses” were used for including purely internal political
affairs in the agenda of UN Security Council meetings.
“Why has the United States resorted to such a move today, when the
internal political situation in Iran has normalized?” he asked. Russia’s UN
envoy believes that oddly enough words of thanks for Iran’s return to
stability should be addressed to Washington, because to a large extent its
own promises of “great support” for the people of Iran “caused Iranian
society to consolidate on the platform of anti-US sentiment.”
“One has the impression that unexplainably irrational allergy to that
country has a blind-folding effect in evaluating the events there and results
in wishful thinking,” Nebenzya said. He expressed the certainty that the real
purpose behind the motion to convene the meeting on Iran was a “camouflaged
attempt to use the current events for pushing ahead with efforts to undermine
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for a settlement over the
Iranian nuclear program.”
Anti-government demonstrations began in Iran on December 28, 2017 over
price hikes and a string of bankruptcies. Street clashes claimed the lives of
45 protesters, police and police support personnel. According to the Iranian
authorities, more than 450 rioters have been arrested and will stand trial
soon.
Nebenzya told the UN Security Council Russia regretted the loss of human
life “as a result of demonstrations that were not peaceful at all,” but at
the same time called for “letting Iran settle internal problems on its own.”.
BSS/TASS/MRI/0901 hrs