TEHRAN – The Iranian Foreign Ministry released on Friday two reports on human rights violations in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

“The governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, despite their prominent role in most controversial domestic and international disputes, have always claimed to defend the foundations and principles of human rights,” the Ministry said in a statement. “Based on this, these governments have always allowed themselves to have interventionist positions and movements regarding the situation and conditions of human rights in other countries.”

The statement added, “A detailed examination of the human rights positions of these two countries regarding the human rights situation of other countries in the world clearly shows that their statesmen adopted these positions based on their short-term or long-term political preferences and interests. This procedure has provided them with a means of using the issue of human rights at the international level.”

The statement added, “It is more unfortunate that in today's world, these self-interested preferences are the basis of the political action of these two allied governments in relation to major political and international issues.”

The reports were compiled in accordance with a 2012 parliamentary law mandating the Iranian foreign ministry to release annual reports on the violation of human rights in the U.S. and the UK.