Speaking in a televised interview on Sunday, Kazem Gharibabadi said certain countries supported the Israeli regime during its 12-day war of aggression, specifically naming the three European countries of Britain, Germany and France.
“Aside from these three, I did not see any other country that supported the Zionist regime, and of course, the United States, which was part of this aggression,” he added.
He noted that the trio defended their support for the Tel Aviv regime using “baseless arguments.”
The senior Iranian diplomat explained that representatives of the US and Israel have prepared and submitted letters to the United Nations to justify the aggression against Iran, adding that “the three countries also repeated the same justifications and pretexts.”
The US and the Israeli regime claimed that Iran’s nuclear program posed an imminent threat and was moving towards militarization, he explained.
Therefore, he added, Iran had a legitimate right to self-defense to neutralize the US-Israeli plots.
It is ridiculous that the US claimed in its letter that it did not initiate the war and that it was in a “state of war” with Iran, he emphasized.
“This is completely false from a legal perspective. Iran has never been in a state of war with the United States,” Gharibabadi pointed out.
He noted that the US and Israel claimed that the slogans of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” showed that Iran has sought to eliminate them and that is the reason they used as a justification to defend their so-called right to self-defense as legitimate.
On the morning of June 13, the Israeli regime launched a premeditated, large-scale military attack on Iranian soil with the green light from the United States.
The Tel Aviv regime conducted indiscriminate strikes on densely populated civilian areas, vital infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and non-combatants. The result was hundreds of fatalities, thousands of injuries, and significant damage to the country’s medical, educational, and industrial facilities in civilian areas.
In response, Iran launched Operation True Promise III, a sweeping counteroffensive that struck critical military, intelligence, and industrial infrastructure across the occupied territories.
The retaliatory strikes were followed by an Iranian missile strike against al-Udeid, a key US airbase in the region, after the US joined the war by bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities.
The Israeli regime was forced on June 24 to declare a unilateral halt to its aggression, which was announced on its behalf by US President Donald Trump.
Gharibabadi said Iran has not yet received a formal note that the EU troika intends to trigger the so-called “snapback mechanism” to reimpose United Nations sanctions, but expects them to do so one day.
He stressed the importance of making necessary arrangements to confront such a policy and respond to it effectively.
“So, we keep ourselves prepared for such scenarios every day,” the Iranian deputy foreign minister continued.
Pointing to the latest remark by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said that his country had submitted a request to the UN to activate the snapback mechanism against Iran, Gharibabadi said the Iranian Foreign Ministry would follow up on the case via Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The snapback mechanism would bring into force six previous Iran-related Security Council resolutions adopted between 2006 and 2010. It would reinstate the expired UN arms embargo that barred countries from supplying, selling, or transferring most military equipment to Iran and prohibited Tehran from exporting any weapons.
It would also impose export controls, travel bans, asset freezes, and other restrictions on individuals, entities, and banks.
Gharibabadi said Iran would not welcome the activation of the snapback mechanism but would instead carry out “every necessary measure to prevent them from resorting to this mechanism.”
However, this does not mean that Iran would compromise on the issue, he explained.
“If they take this action, they will effectively exclude themselves from the realm of interaction and diplomatic engagement with Iran,” the Iranian diplomat emphasized.
He noted that Iran and the E3 have held six rounds of talks because “the atmosphere of engagement is still open” but in case of the triggering of the snapback mechanism, any interaction would be meaningless.
He added the United States in 2018 quit the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and the three European countries did not fulfill even one of their obligations.
Therefore, it is “sheer audacity” of the trio to claim that Iran has not fulfilled its commitments, and thus previous resolutions of the Security Council must be reinstated, he continued.
