Assassinating General of Peace most obvious example of US terrorism: Iran FM

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)’s president, Iran’s foreign minister says US perpetration of terrorism is epitomized by the assassination of Iran’s senior anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

“The assassination of Martyr General Soleimani, the great General of Peace, by the United States on the Iraqi soil, was one of the most obvious instances of terrorism,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said during a face-to-face meeting with Abdulla Shahid on Thursday in New York. Amir-Abdollahian has travelled to the city to attend the UN General Assembly’s 76th Session.

An international legal committee has been formed inside the Islamic Republic to pursue the atrocity, with the aim of consigning those who perpetrated and ordered it to justice, he added.

The United Nations, however, definitely played an important role in this regard too, Amir-Abdollahian underscored.

He called terrorism a phenomenon that has come to afflict the entire world, noting the Islamic Republic’s constructive role in cooperating with the regional countries, from Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan, in fighting it.

General Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), used to direct the military advisory support that Iran has been providing to Iraq and Syria against terrorism at the Arab countries’ respective request.

The assistance helped the countries rout the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh in late 2017. The United States has been using the group as an excuse to prolong its invasion of the countries.

Early last year, the US carried out a drone strike against the Iraqi capital Baghdad at the orders of former American president Donald Trump that led to the martyrdom of General Soleimani and senior Iraqi counter-terrorism commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis alongside their companions.

The IRGC retaliated by firing volleys of ballistic missiles towards two major Iraqi bases hosting Americans. The Iraqi parliament too voted overwhelmingly in favor a legislation outlawing all instances of foreign military presence on the Iraqi soil.