Mottaki flies to Geneva for human rights meeting

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has left Tehran for Geneva to take part in the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Mottaki, who left Iran on Sunday night accompanied by Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, will seek to highlight Iran’s stance on the issue at the gathering in the Swiss city.

He will also meet with Iranian envoys based in Geneva to discuss efforts to promote the idea of global nuclear disarmament.

Officials in Tehran have recently been directing criticism at the US and some of its Western allies for turning a blind eye to Israel’s human rights violations.

They see Washington as the world’s major human rights violator and say it is flouting the Geneva Conventions in its so-called war on terror.

In January, a team of UN rights investigators expressed similar concerns, accusing the US of violating human rights by kidnapping and holding terrorism suspects in secret detention centers over the past nine years.

However, the major powers tried to turn the tables on Iran by accusing the country of human rights violations at a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has defended the country’s track record, saying that the major powers’ conduct shows that they are only trying to use the concept of human rights for political leverage.