Iran Rejects Military, Economic Coercion at UN Charter Group Meeting

Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi, who has traveled to Geneva to attend a high-level segment of the Human Rights Council session, delivered a speech to a high-level meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, held on the sidelines of the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Participants in the meeting examined challenges facing the international order and stressed the need to uphold the principles of the UN Charter.

Addressing the event, Gharibabadi said the United States, which had long portrayed itself as a proponent of an international order based on international law, has now become the primary force behind its disintegration.

Referring to Washington’s coercive approaches toward other countries, the Iranian diplomat said direct military interventions, economic coercive measures, threats against states’ territorial integrity, and systematic disregard for the principles of sovereignty and non-interference reflected a calculated effort to dismantle the international law-based order.

Gharibabadi stressed that Iran would not accept such a destabilizing reality, reaffirming Tehran’s firm commitment to the UN Charter, sovereign immunity, and the principle of non-interference. He added that Iran would defend its rights not through submission, but through lawful and measured resistance and by relying on strategic self-reliance.

He also pointed to US support for the Israeli regime in committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza, including through vetoing draft resolutions aimed at ending the crimes, saying such backing and complicity had emboldened Israel to carry out genocide with impunity and had further escalated aggression against the sovereign territory of West Asian countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At the meeting, member states condemned US actions and threats of military aggression against Iran, declaring their strong support for the country. They also underscored the need for solidarity among independent states and for strengthening multilateralism within the framework of the UN Charter.

The Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations was launched in July 2021, in New York. It is composed of 18 member states, including Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mali, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, the Russian Federation, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Angola and Cambodia were founding members of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations./tasnim