WANA (Sep 03) – Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, has expressed deep concern over recent developments in Latin America and the Caribbean, warning that U.S. hostile and provocative actions against Venezuela pose a serious threat to international peace and security and violate the UN Charter.

 

Speaking at the UN Conference on Disarmament, Bahreini criticized Washington’s years of “illegal sanctions, unilateral coercive measures, and efforts to change the Venezuelan government, including assassination attempts against its lawful officials.”

 

He said the latest deployment of U.S. warships and a nuclear submarine to the Caribbean “openly threatens Venezuela’s political independence and territorial integrity.”

 

The Iranian envoy described U.S. measures as a “blatant violation of fundamental principles of international law, particularly Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.” He added that Washington was also disregarding the principles of peaceful dispute settlement (Article 2(3)) and non-interference in the internal affairs of states (Article 2(7)).

 

“UN was founded to ensure the rule of law and international law in relations among states—not the use of force and coercive policies,” Bahreini said. He further pointed to “the recent U.S. attack on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities, carried out in coordination with the Israeli regime,” as evidence that Washington “does not believe in diplomacy or peaceful settlement of disputes.”

 

The envoy underlined that “threatening a non-nuclear NPT member with a nuclear submarine deployment by a permanent Security Council member is a grave threat to regional and international peace and a fundamental blow to the disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”

 

Bahreini also argued that the move violates the Treaty of Tlatelolco on the denuclearization of Latin America and the Caribbean, to which the United States is a signatory under its second protocol.

 

He called on the international community to “compel Washington to end its military deployment in the Caribbean, respect Venezuela’s political independence and territorial integrity, and adhere to international law and the UN Charter before current tensions escalate into full-scale conflict.”

 

Concluding his remarks, the Iranian envoy stressed: “The provocative behavior of a nuclear-armed state against a non-nuclear state once again demonstrates the grave risks of nuclear weapons. The only credible guarantee against their use is the complete, verifiable, and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons. Until that goal is achieved, unconditional legal assurances of non-use and non-threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states remain an undeniable necessity.”