The UN General Assembly's human rights committee on Thursday adopted a nonbinding resolution drafted by Canada on a 76-35 vote, with 68 abstentions, which rebuked Iran for alleged human rights violations.
Iran's Deputy UN Ambassador Gholamhossein Dehghani deemed the nonbinding resolution drafted by Canada a ‘clear fallback’ on UN human rights mechanism and slammed the resolution as a ‘selective and politicized distortion of facts’ regarding Iran.
“The resolution comes when Iran has been pursuing a constructive policy among whose achievements was the recent historic nuclear accord," said Dehghani.
The UN ambassador added that while the whole international community has welcomed the recent developments, Canada still continues its ‘hostile’ and ‘unjustified’ past policy against Iran, and keeps denying the significance of the historic nuclear agreement struck between the Islamic Republic and the six states.
Dehghani slammed the baseless claims in the resolution as the result of a ‘short-sighted approach’ which deliberately ignores the threats of violent extremism in the region and attempts to promote ‘Iranophobia’.
“Many of those who are currently committing the most ruthless crimes have been born and raised by some countries – faced with xenophobia and isolation themselves – that are now backing the resolution,” said Dehghani, stressing that the most fundamental aspects of human rights in today’s world is being seriously threatened by violent extremism.
The Iranian ambassador expressed hope that the new government of Justin Trudeau would pursue the constructive policy of interaction and dialogue – as was its election pledge – instead of insisting on the old modus operandi of politicizing human rights.
Dehghani maintained that Iran is of the opinion that the resolution cannot be a basis for promoting human rights.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari also said on Friday that Tehran opposes an ‘instrumental and political’ use of human rights against the independent countries.
Voicing the Islamic Republic’s regret over the misappropriation of the mechanisms of UN human rights as a pretext for selective policy, Jaberi Ansari added that Iran advocates ‘constructive dialogue and interaction’ as the best approach to promote human rights.
Representatives of Belarus, Ecuador, Copa, Bolivia, China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil delivered speeches in opposition to the overall draft resolutions adopted at the assembly's Third Committee on Thursday.
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