Iran on Thursday slammed the United Nations' decision to suspend its voting rights for failing to pay its dues as "fundamentally flawed, entirely unacceptable and completely unjustified."
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Tehran argues that the $16.2 million it owes to the UN is the result of Washington's crippling sanctions, imposed after former US President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the US from a nuclear deal with Iran.
Iran's voting rights at the 193-member UN General Assembly were suspended in January under rules for countries whose arrears are equal to or exceed their contributions due for the past two years.
In a letter sent to UN chief Antonio Guterres on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed his "strong dismay" at the loss of the voting rights.
"Iran's inability to fulfill its financial obligation toward the United Nations is directly caused by 'unlawful unilateral sanctions' imposed by the United States," Zarif wrote, according to the letter posted on his Twitter account.
In "black is white" world, UN deprived Iran of its voting rights in the #UNGA as we're in arrears.
Not considered: US #EconomicTerrorism prevents Iran paying for FOOD, let alone UN dues
My letter to @antonioguterres:
ps: UN can also collect from $110M US stole in recent piracy pic.twitter.com/xe30TsxP8f
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 3, 2021
The Central African Republic was also found to be in arrears on paying its UN dues and will lose its voting rights as well.
In the letter to General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir, Guterres said three other African countries – Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia – are also in arrears. But he said the assembly passed a resolution saying they can still vote in the current session which ends in September.
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According to the secretary-general's letter, the minimum payments needed to restore voting rights are $16,251,298 for Iran and $29,395 for the Central African Republic.
Comoros needs to pay $871,632, Sao Tome and Principe $829,888, and Somalia $1,443,640 to reduce their arrears and avoid a possible cutoff of voting rights after September, the letter says.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
