Iran will spare no efforts to hold culprits behind Gen. Soleimani’s assassination to account: Tehran
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says the Islamic Republic will spare no efforts to hold to account all culprits behind the US assassination of the country’s top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Nasser Kan’ani praised the role of General Soleimani as a distinguished figure in the fight against terrorism and consolidation of the resistance front.
“This glorious martyr devoted his life to faithfully serving the Iranian nation, Islam, and regional and international peace and security. He played a prominent role within the framework of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic policies to secure regional and global peace and stability. He took effective measures against international terrorism and terrorist groups in the region,” he said.
He explained that the US government, under former president Donald Trump, violated international regulations and legal principles and plotted and carried out the assassination of General Soleimani.
“This criminal act came as he was a top-ranking Iranian official and was on an official visit to Iraq. The criminal act of the United States in assassinating General Soleimani is a clear act of terrorism that was planned and implemented in an organized manner,” Kan’ani said.
“Under international legal conventions, the US bears full responsibility for the crime, while all architects, organizers and culprits are accountable for the terrorist crime. The [Iranian] Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with other state institutions and the Judiciary, has therefore exhausted all available legal channels to bring the criminals to justice, and will seriously continue its efforts in domestic, regional and international courts of law until a final settlement is reached,” the Iranian diplomat stressed.
General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), as well as their companions, were killed in a US drone strike authorized by Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
Both commanders were highly revered across the Middle East because of their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
Two days after their assassination, Iraqi lawmakers approved a bill that required the government to end the presence of all foreign military forces led by the US in the country.
On January 8, 2020, the IRGC targeted the US-run Ain al-Asad base in Iraq’s western province of Anbar with a wave of missile attacks in an act of retaliation.
During the missile strike, described by Iran as a “first slap,” more than 100 American forces reportedly suffered “traumatic brain injuries.”
‘Iran welcomes restoration of ties with Egypt’
Elsewhere in his Monday remarks, Kan’ani touched upon the restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Egypt, saying Tehran welcomes any positive initiative in this regard.
He said that Iranian and Egyptian foreign ministers held talks last month on the sidelines of the second regional summit on Iraq in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
During the talks, the two sides agreed to continue negotiations to work out a solution on consular issues, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman explained.
“The two sides have basically no problems for [holding] dialogues, meetings, and bilateral exchanges of views,” he said.
Iran 'fully prepared' to conclude Vienna talks: Kan’ani
Kan’ani also pointed to the diplomatic efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
He said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell recently discussed the Vienna talks when they met in Amman.
“There was a consensus that negotiations should continue with the aim of activating and finalizing the [Vienna] talks, and that the exchange of messages should go on at different levels.”
“Iran is fully prepared to conclude the Vienna negotiations on the basis of a draft negotiation package, which is the outcome of months of hard and intensive negotiations and observes its red lines. This readiness is not everlasting, and the ball is now in the Western side’s court,” he said.
The talks to revive the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021 with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.
Kan’ani also underscored Iran’s principled policy of helping Afghan people and authorities to resolve problems in the war-ravaged country, saying that the Islamic Republic has been hosting millions of Afghan refugees for years even though it has not been offered any foreign assistance.
He also called for efforts to promote the political settlement of the Syria crisis, emphasizing there is no military solution to end it.
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