TEHRAN – Iran’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Eshaq Al-e Habib said on Thursday that U.S. unilateralism is the “greatest threat and challenge to international peace and security”.

Al-e Habib made the remarks as he was addressing a UN General Assembly conference with a focus on the need to end “economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”.

Following is the full text of his statement published by IRNA:

At the outset, I wish to take this opportunity to offer our warm welcome to Mr. Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, the Foreign Minister of Cuba.

My delegation associates itself with the statements delivered yesterday by the representatives of Palestine, Azerbaijan, and Uganda, on behalf of Group of 77 and China, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries as well as Organization of Islamic Conference. However, I would also like to add the following remarks in my national capacity.

Today, we are witnessing that the expansionist and arrogant approach of a certain Government presents the greatest threat and challenge to world peace and security. The growing resort to unilateral coercive measures is one of the clear symptoms of unilateralism coupled with an interventionist, flawed and short-sighted foreign policy.

Among others, unilateral embargoes and coercive sanctions, as a means to achieving national policy objectives, have a seriously adverse impact on the promotion of peace at the regional and international levels. They are fundamental impediments to establishing not only a peaceful and prosperous world but also a just and equitable international order which is a vital prerequisite for sustainable development.

The inhumane sanctions and blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba for almost six decades is the most unjust and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions applied against any country. These aggressive measures constitute a gross violation of the norms and principles underpinning the international relations order. No Cuban citizen or sector of the economy has been immune from the negative effects of this unilateral policy which hinders the development that every country is entitled to construct in a sovereign manner.

In the past year, the tightening of the blockade has continued to be the central pivot of U.S. government policy towards Cuba, with ever more notable effects in its extraterritorial application. 

Regretfully, we have observed that the U.S. Department of State has on different occasions expanded the “Restricted List of Cuban Entities”, to the blockade regulations, which caused considerable damage to the country’s economy because of its effects of intimidating the international business community.

In fact, the U.S. has been addicted to imposing unilateral sanctions when it comes to States that do not submit to or follow its contradictory and expansionist policies. In reality, Iran and Cuba are paying the price for their resistance and insistence on their independence from the United States’ colonialist policies. Iran has experienced the U.S. unlawful sanctions since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago.

Within the last four decades, the U.S. has imposed unilateral coercive measures on the Iranian people at an increasing rate to the extent that the current U.S. Administration, defiant of the established norms, has even targeted importation of medicine and medical equipment. Thus, patients, women and children, refugees, poor and those in vulnerable situations have become the prime target of the U.S. genocidal economic terrorism--against all principles of international law.

The U.S. Administration wants the world to believe that it is concerned about the Iranian people. Yet the very first sanctions it reimposed have canceled licenses for sales of more than 200 passenger jets under absurd pretexts, endangering ordinary Iranians. U.S. hypocrisy knows no bounds.

The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of putting “Maximum Pressure” through imposing new sanctions, not only targets the Iranian public but also has harmful repercussions for the peoples of other countries, and has disrupted the state of global trade.

The message of today’s meeting is a reaffirmation of the fact that the time for interventionist policies and interference in the farthest reaches of the world is long over.

Iran will keep working with its partners to create a new environment in which self-respecting nations can pursue their own interests and international obligations. We will continue to work to offset unlawful U.S. sanctions and irrevocably eliminate the destabilizing phenomenon of the U.S. extraterritorial application of domestic legislation.

The world needs to find solutions against such destructive interventions and unilateralism.

Iran strongly believes in cooperating with friendly countries, including Cuba to address this challenge prudently and will not allow the U.S. Administration, which has stripped the U.S. foreign policy of any principles, to achieve its illegitimate objectives.

NA/PA