Newses & Articles
Stealers, Keepers: The Great American Robbery
Publish Date : 1395/6/14 Time 12:57:51
Stealers, Keepers: The Great American Robbery
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TEHRAN (FNA)- Stealing is a crime and a very ill-mannered thing to do. But like most ill-mannered things, it is excusable for the Official Washington under certain circumstances, specially when it involves an “exception” called Iran and its frozen assets.
Here, by supporting a Supreme Court ruling that allows the use of seized assets from Iran’s Central Bank to compensate American victims of terrorist attacks, the United States government has broken International Law. It has also sold itself short.
In this respect, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been quick to react. He has sent an angry letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, asking for his help in stopping the US from carrying out the April 20 court ruling.
Under the ruling, nearly $2 billion in impounded assets from Iran’s Central Bank will be disbursed to more than 1,000 Americans - survivors and relatives of victims killed in terrorist attacks that Washington has attributed to Iranian agents. The attacks include the 1983 truck bombing of a Marine base in Beirut, Lebanon, and a 1996 truck bombing in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Iran, has denied involvement at any rate, describing the unsubstantiated ruling as an outrageous robbery.
In his letter, though, Zarif has also asked the UN chief to help ensure that Washington carries out its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear agreement between Iran and major powers that took effect in January.
This is because by backing the Supreme Court ruling, the US government has also failed to fulfill its obligations stipulated in the nuclear agreement. What’s more, the US government is interfering with Iran’s ability to conduct financial transactions permitted by that agreement, which equally doesn’t comfort with International Law.
And it’s not just the Iranian foreign minister who is not happy with the latest American shenanigans. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei also says the US government has resorted to deception to obstruct international trade with Iran despite the nuclear agreement and Tehran’s goodwill gestures.
In his words, “On paper, the Americans say banks can trade with Iran but in practice they act in such an Iranophobic way that no trade can take place with Iran.” The Iranian Leader couldn’t be more accurate:
The United States is not committed to doing its part in the nuclear deal. It is standing in the way of international business that is permitted with Iran under the deal. Also, the UN chief won’t press Washington to release Iran’s frozen assets in line with the nuclear agreement either, for the simple fact that he can’t. And no, Foreign Minister Zarif can’t retaliate, because there are no frozen American assets in Iran!
Seeing that the concept of sovereign immunity does not generally allow foreign states to be held accountable for their actions (in the case of Iran there were no actions at all!), and that US law explicitly forbids taking central bank money on top of this, the Iranian government has no other option but to sue the US government in the International Court of Justice to block the Supreme Court ruling from taking effect.
There is little doubt that the entire court proceedings were fake, phony, and political, indeed a travesty of justice in every sense of the word. There is also little doubt that America is planning on breaking in and stealing even more Iranian assets - potentially a matter of tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.