Iran accuses US of ‘brazen’ plan to change its government

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said in a June 14 congressional hearing that US policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons 'and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government'.

UNITED NATIONS // Iran is accusing US secretary of state Rex Tillerson of “a brazen interventionist plan” to change the current government that violates international law and the United Nations charter.

Iran’s UN ambassador, Gholamali Khoshroo, said in a letter to secretary general Antonio Guterres circulated on Tuesday that remarks made by Mr Tillerson are also “a flagrant violation” of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged “not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs”.

Mr Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee on the 2018 state department budget that US policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons “and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government”.

“Those elements are there, certainly as we know,” he said.

Mr Kohshroo said Iran expects all countries to condemn “such grotesque policy statements and advise the government of the United States to act responsibly and to adhere to the principles of the [UN] charter and international law.”

He noted that Mr Tillerson’s comments came weeks after Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s re-election to another four-year term and local elections in which 71 per cent of the Iranian people participated. Mr Rouhani is a political moderate who defeated a hardline opponent.

“The people of Iran have repeatedly proven that they are the ones to decide their own destiny and thus attempts by the United States to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs will be doomed to failure,” Mr Kohshroo said. “They have learned how to stand strong and independent, as demonstrated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.”

He said Mr Tillerson’s remarks also coincided with the released of newly declassified documents that “further clarified how United States agencies were behind the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular and democratically elected prime minister of Iran on August 19, 1953”.

At the June 14 hearing, Mr Tillerson said the Trump administration’s Iranian policy is under development.

“But I would tell you that we certainly recognize Iran’s continued destabilizing [role] in the region,” the secretary of state said, citing Tehran’s payment of foreign fighters, support for Hizbollah militants, and “their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen”. US lawmakers have long sought to hit Iran with more sanctions in order to check its ballistic missile programme and rebuke Tehran’s continued support for terrorist groups, and on June 15 the senate approved a sweeping sanctions bill.

The bill imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran’s ballistic missile programme and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country’s Revolutionary Guard and enforce an arms embargo. It now goes to the House of Representatives for approval.

Senators insisted the new Iran sanctions won’t undermine or impede enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal that former president Barack Obama and five other key nations reached with Tehran two years ago.

* Associated Press