Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led the stalled nuclear deal talks with the United States, demanded in a letter to the United Nations on Sunday that the global body help Tehran seek “reparation” for the damage caused by American airstrikes on his country’s illicit nuclear sites.
The letter, according to the Iranian propaganda website PressTV, insisted that the Security Council had a responsibility to “hold the aggressors accountable,” referring to Israel and the United States, and recognize the targeted attacks on Iran’s terrorism apparatus as “heinous and serious crimes.”
“We solemnly request that the Security Council recognize the Israeli regime and the United States as the initiators of the act of aggression and their subsequent responsibility,” Araghchi reportedly wrote, “therefore including compensation and reparation.”
PressTV did not indicate that Araghchi had suggested any specific form or amount of “reparation” for the destruction to Iran’s illicit nuclear sites caused by the American and Israeli actions.
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“The Security Council should also hold the aggressors accountable and prevent the recurrence of such heinous and serious crimes to enable it to maintain international peace and security,” the letter continued, adding that, in addition of action against America and Israel as states, the political leaders of those countries are supposedly “also individually liable for the international crime of aggression under customary international law.”
Reiterating Araghchi’s demands during a press briefing on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei called the operations against Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, “an act of aggression with all its characteristics.”
“Our main demand from international bodies, especially the United Nations, is that the aggressor be officially recognized,” Baqaei explained. “The United Nations Security Council must confirm this and take the necessary measures to hold the Zionist regime and the United States accountable.”
The Israeli government announced on June 13 that it had launched a military operation to contain the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran on its homeland, shortly after the United Nations nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), passed a resolution condemning Iran for engaging in illicit nuclear development. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi accused Iran of running several secret uranium enrichment and other nuclear research sites and attempting to “sanitize” them to hide their activities from the agency.
Israel’s “Operating Rising Lion” eliminated some of Iran’s most prominent military and scientific leaders, including several nuclear scientists and generals. Among the most prominent killed was Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The United States joined the fray on June 21, targeting three of Iran’s largest nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump announced on that night that he had approved airstrikes on the Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow uranium enrichment sites and that all three had been “completely and totally obliterated.” Grossi said in an interview shortly thereafter that he believed that the uranium centrifuges at Fordow were “no longer operational,” declining to offer specifics as Iran had expelled IAEA inspectors and not allowed it to assess the damage.
Iran consistently responded to these attacks by shooting missiles into Israel, targeting civilian population centers. No evidence suggests that the regime successfully eroded any Israeli military capacity, but Iranian missiles did hit a hospital and killed over two dozens Israelis.
Araghchi, the top diplomat in the country, began nearly immediately to demand in the aftermath of the destruction of the nuclear sites that America pay “compensation” for neutralizing the threat. Discussing the potential for a new round of talks with Washington last week, Araghchi stated that an immediate return to diplomacy was highly unlikely, and “compensation for damages has now become a serious issue.”
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The Iranian government has similarly, and unsuccessfully, demanded for years that the United States pay financial compensation for the elimination of its top terrorist mastermind, Major General Qasem Soleimani, in a targeted airstrike in 2020. President Trump ordered the airstrike against Soleimani and the head of Iraq’s Hezbollah Brigades, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, that year in response to years of Soleimani leading organized terrorist efforts to kill Americans.
In 2023, a court in Tehran ruled that the United States as a country – as well as Trump personally and several senior members of his administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – pay Iran $50 billion in compensation for the airstrike. No U.S. administration has enforced the ruling and, as no one implicated in the ruling has traveled to Iran since, the country has been unable to enforce it.
Iran’s top representative at the United Nations, Sa’eed Iravani, reiterated in an interview on Sunday that Tehran is not currently interested in talks with Washington.
“Negotiation has its principles, and it is a give and take process,” he reportedly told CBS News, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). “So we should engage in the negotiation and discuss with each other, maybe we reach to a conclusion or not, but the unconditional surrender is not negotiation.”
Trump had demanded that Iran surrender in the war with Israel shortly before he approved attacks on the nuclear sites.
In his comments on Sunday, Iravani also emphasized that Iran had no interest in ending its nuclear development, and in particular uranium enrichment. American negotiators had emphasized that any agreement to lift sanctions on the jihadist regime would require Iran to cease all its enrichment activities, as they are not compatible with a peaceful nuclear energy program.
“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” he insisted.
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