Tehran: No Substitute for Iran’s New UN Ambassador
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi on Saturday said there will be no substitute for Hamid Abutalebi, Iran’s newly-appointed ambassador to the United Nations.
“We have no alternative to Mr. Abutalebi (as Iran’s UN ambassador) and will pursue the issue through envisaged UN legal mechanisms,” Araqchi said, speaking in reaction to a US decision to refuse a visa to Abutalebi.
The US Senate has recently passed a legislation seeking to bar Abutalebi from entering the US.
Asked whether Washington can give precedence to its domestic legislation over its international obligations, the senior Iranian foreign ministry official noted that based on the agreement between the US Headquarters (in New York) and the host government, the United States must fulfill its international commitments.
Araqchi did not elaborate what specific measures the Islamic Republic of Iran is going to take (against the US decision) based on the UN legal mechanisms.
On Tuesday, the White House said the new Iranian ambassador to the UN will not be welcomed in the US, and described his nomination as “not viable”.
Washington has decided to deny a visa to Abutalebi over his possible involvement in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran during post-revolution incidents in 1979.
On November 4, 1979, and in less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution that toppled a US-backed monarchy, Iranian university students that called themselves "students following the line of (the late) Imam (Khomeini)" seized the US embassy in Tehran.
The students justified the takeover by insisting that the compound had become a center of espionage and planning to overthrow the newly established Islamic system in Iran.
The students occupying the embassy later published documents proving that the compound was indeed engaged in plans and measures to overthrow the Islamic system.
