Iran complains to UN over US threat

Iran has submitted an official complaint to the United Nations over a US threat to attack the country with atomic weapons, which is in direct violation of the UN charter.

In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and General Assembly presidents, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, said the US threat constitutes “nuclear blackmail.”

The envoy added Tehran strongly objects to US officials’ threatening comments as well as accusations made against Iran in the new US nuclear arms strategy.

He also pointed out such threats of nuclear attack are an “inhumane” breach of international treaties and principles outlined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Khazaee described the threats made by US President Barack Obama and his secretaries of state and defense, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Roberts Gates, as nuclear blackmail against a NPT member state.

Last week, US President Barack Obama released a new US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that among other things restricts the use of nuclear arms against most non-atomic states, exempting Iran.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Obama clearly said the NPR loophole would apply to what he called “outliers like Iran and North Korea.”

Iran’s letter, which was handed over to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, also highlighted that the Islamic Republic, a victim of weapons of mass destruction itself, was seriously dedicated to the goal of achieving a world free of such weapons.

To prove its intentions, Iran has signed the NPT, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the letter added.