Iran highlights US 'hypocrisy' on Gen Soleimani's 3rd death anniversary

Says 'so-called preventive assassination was categorically meant to eliminate a competent and triumphant force'

ISLAMABAD:

Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Islamabad on Monday once again strongly condemned the “hideous terrorist action tantamount to state terrorism” on the third anniversary of the assassination of Lieutenant General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with his companion Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and several of their retinues.

An official statement by the embassy said that the “act of terrorism against an official and high-ranking military staff of the United Nations (UN) member state was an obvious breach of international law, Geneva Conventions and military customs and regulations”.

“This action, being an act of crime and an act of aggression is considered to be a great threat to the peace and security of the world and the region,” added the press statement.

Read Iran commander vows 'resistance' a year after Soleimani killing

The press release further stated that by assassinating “one of the greatest and veteran commanders to fight against terrorism and extremism, the United States (US) enervated the axis to combat against Takfiri groups and now the region is engaged in the negative consequences emerging from the lack of a proficient and stalwart commander”.

“The so-called preventive assassination was categorically meant to eliminate a competent and triumphant force, but soon after it proved to be a miscalculation strategic illusion exercised by an awkward quasi-politician, prompted by associate elements and facilitated by hypocrites,” stated the press release.

The embassy also said that the state terrorism revealed the double standards even in the definition and implementation of the most evident and basic principle of international law and human rights.

“Examples of this kind of double standard and hypocrisy by the US are galore in the contemporary history of the international community,” stated the press statement.

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It furthered, “Nowadays, the people of the region are affected by the miscalculations, strategic errors, interventions and opportunism by the exterior countries.”

The embassy also said that no nation like Iran and Pakistan has ever been affected by the plague of terrorism and it continues to exist. It furthered that terrorism is the common pain of the two Muslim nations and "a lot of pure blood" has been shed on this path.

“Now, three years passes since the unmanly assassination of Gen Soleimani, Iran is still resolute to hold the committers, supporters and assistants of this brutal crime accountable and to prosecute them in a fair and equitable court of justice,” the statement added.

While further condemning the action the statement read, “This action is regarded as an international criminal act indictable in the international tribunals, International Criminal Court (ICC) being one, the scope of the mechanism of which the US escaped some two decades ago in order to evade accountability under such crimes and to provide impunity for the committers of the international crime as such”.

“However, the Islamic Republic of Iran will officially use its political, legal and international capacities in order to take action and prosecute and indict the perpetrators of this hideous crime through recognised legal mechanisms,” the statement concluded.

Soleimani’s killing

The US killed Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, in Iraq on Jan 3, 2020. Washington had accused him of masterminding attacks by Iranian-aligned militias on US forces in the region.

The killing of Soleimani, the architect of Iran's Middle Eastern military strategy, sent shock waves across the region and sparked fears of a direct military confrontation between decades-old arch-enemies Washington and Tehran.

Days after the US drone strike, Iran retaliated with a rocket attack on an Iraqi air base where US forces were stationed, and Iranian forces on high alert mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner taking off from Tehran.