Trump Bars Iranian FM From Addressing the UN Security Council
Afraid of a little speech??
To avoid a speech at the UN Security Council critical of President Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qassam Soleimani, the US has refused to allow Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to enter the country for the purpose of conducting UN business.
Zarif has been planning to visit the UN for weeks, and had requested the visa back in December. The 1947 UN Headquarters treaty obliges the US not to “impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district” for officials invited to the UN on official business. This means the US is overtly violating this deal.
There is no legal basis for what the US is doing in this case. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was informed by the Trump Administration that they won’t allow Zarif into the country to attend his already scheduled UN speech.
This follows months of the US increasingly restricting the movements of Zarif and other Iranians involved in the UN delegation. Most of the restrictions were overtly intended to prevent Zarif from reaching TV studios within New York City.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had previously threatened to bar Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani from the UN General Assembly, arguing that they are “connected to a foreign terrorist organization.” UN officials have pointed out that the treaty does not allow Pompeo to make decisions to exclude officials from a UN member nation to address the UN Security Council.
This extra-legal move is not totally unprecedented. In 1988, the Reagan Administration blocked Yasser Arafat from addressing the UN General Assembly. The UN responded by moving the entire General Assembly to Geneva, Switzerland for the speech.
It would be difficult to try to relocate the UN Security Council over one speech by Zarif, but if the US makes a habit out of blocking its critics from the UN, in violation of the Headquarters treaty, the UN must inevitably consider relocating out of the US entirely for the sake of its operation.
Source: Antiwar.com
Refusing to admit Zarif is another foolish mistake on the administration’s part. Preventing him from coming to the U.N. not only breaches our government’s agreement with the U.N., but it also closes off a possible channel of communication and demonstrates to the world that the U.S. has no interest in a diplomatic resolution of the current crisis.
Far from conveying the “toughness” that Pompeo imagines he is showing, keeping Zarif out reeks of weakness and insecurity. Zarif is a capable diplomat, but is the Trump administration really so afraid of what he would say while he is here that they would ignore U.S. obligations to block him?
[…] Trump Bars Iranian FM From Addressing the UN Security Council by Jason Ditz on January 7, 2020 at 16:33 […]
Then the UN Security Council will have to go to another location out of the US to hear the Iranian diplomat speak. Seriously, if the Iranian diplomat is not permitted to speak by the US in the UN..they must go out of US territory to hear him!
Is it possible for like minded countries to remove themselves from UN???must UN head quarters be in USA?what happened to NAM??
Yes they are afraid. Truth will out!
Not only a rogue state but a juvenile rogue state.
Takes its marching orders from the nitwityahoo anti-semites in israel.
This means the US is overtly violating this deal.
I am sure China, Russia and maybe even France and England will challenge Trump’s illegal act. If America does not allow the Iranian foreign minister to enter New York the other Security Council members should demand a legal reason. Trump’s actions strike at the UN and the Security Council far more than on Iran.
Most countries around the world know for a fact that the UN is now worthless as an organization. It’s primary purpose of maintaining peace and security is a complete failure which is why many member states are arming themselves at an unprecedented pace. The reasons for the failure have little to do with the organization itself but are mostly because certain powerful countries around planet Earth feel so powerful and have drank their own kool aid narrative to such a degree that they violate the UN Charter at will, without restraint all while calling themselves compliant.
I just came across a great article in Asia Times titled “Financial Nuclear Option will settle Trump’s oil War” Here is a quote. You should read it:
the United States government – on foreign soil, as a guest nation – has assassinated a diplomatic envoy who was on an official mission that had been requested by the United States government itself.
Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across the Middle East. Those negotiations had been requested by the Trump administration.
I saw that actually but Thank you. I don’t know why this is hard for some “my country right or wrong” people to understand, but this murder was dishonorable. It’s beneath contempt, in the same way firing on an unarmed officer approaching your lines with a white flag of truce would be considered cowardly. I mean even if one is confused and uninformed about how the ISIS war has been perverted in Washington into a Shia hunt on the down low, what is difficult to see about the dishonor of killing a uniformed officer, at the Baghdad civilian airport, traveling unarmed in a civilian car with a diplomatic note responding to an American requested mediation by the Iraqi Prime Minister, who’s government declined permission for the strike on their invited guest, who was carrying a diplomatic passport?
What Trump did is so wrong on so many levels and that wrong is now registered as a formal complaint by Iraq so this is not some shady part of history It IS history that began a war
The shame and dishonor is so clear America will not win this war. America will lose since she is fighting without honor, ethics and in shameful manner. The very act of threatening to destroy Iran’s legacy is so beneath contempt it is mind boggling.
Any soldier going to battle needs an honorable reason to fight and die. The American soldier lacks that moral strength. He knows the truth, while the Iranian soldier is strengthened by a truly righteous cause. That is deadly for America.
I agree.
Britain and France are vassals, they do not question their orders from the Empire.
They have both already parroted off how bad Soleimani was, what did you expect from them, a backbone?
True
YES! The US is afraid of what Zarif would say at the UN…the truth hurts the Rogue State
He might say why didn’t the US go via the UNSC. Present its invisible evidence to all UNSC members. UN has become a weak worthless administration.
Any country agreeing with a UN member state organizing state sponsored political killings of another UN member state better take a better look at things. It make the UN in the USA useless.
Once the UN leaves the world war 3 will begin watch.