Haley Urges UN to Confront Iran’s ‘Destructive Conduct’

US Ambassador Nikki Haley addresses a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, Monday Sept. 4, 2017 at UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
US Ambassador Nikki Haley addresses a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, Monday Sept. 4, 2017 at UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
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Haley Urges UN to Confront Iran’s ‘Destructive Conduct’

US Ambassador Nikki Haley addresses a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, Monday Sept. 4, 2017 at UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
US Ambassador Nikki Haley addresses a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, Monday Sept. 4, 2017 at UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

US Ambassador Nikki Haley urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to adopt the Trump administration's comprehensive approach to Iran and address all aspects of its "destructive conduct" — not just the 2015 nuclear deal.

She told the council that Iran "has repeatedly thumbed its nose" at council resolutions aimed at addressing Iranian support for terrorism and regional conflicts and has illegally supplied weapons to armed groups in Yemen and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon.

Haley cited a long list of Iranian violations, including threatening freedom of navigation, cyberattacks, imprisonment of journalists and other foreigners, and abuses of its people by persecuting some religions.

According to the Associated Press, she called Iran's most threatening act its repeated ballistic missile launches.

"This should be a clarion call to everyone in the United Nations," Haley said, warning that when Tehran starts down the path of ballistic missiles, “we will soon have another North Korea on our hands."

Haley said the Security Council has the opportunity to change its policy toward Iran.

"I sincerely hope it will take this chance to defend not only the resolutions but peace, security and human rights in Iran," she said.

"Judging Iran by the narrow confines of the nuclear deal misses the true nature of the threat," Haley stressed. "Iran must be judged in totality of its aggressive, destabilizing and unlawful behavior.”



EU Voices Support for ICC After US Sanctions Judges

The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
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EU Voices Support for ICC After US Sanctions Judges

The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)
The International Criminal Court building is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, January 16, 2019. (Reuters)

The European Union strongly supports the International Criminal Court, the head of the bloc's highest political body said on Friday, after US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions on four judges at the court.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, which represents national governments of the 27 member states, said the court is "a cornerstone of international justice" and said its independence and integrity must be protected.

Costa spoke a day after Washington imposed sanctions on four judges at the ICC in unprecedented retaliation for the war tribunal's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

The order names Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said these judges had "actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel".

The ICC and some of its member states are urging the European Union to use its blocking statute, which bans any EU company from complying with US sanctions, to counter the sanctions.

"Due to the inclusion of a citizen of an EU member state on the sanctions list, Slovenia will propose the immediate activation of the blocking act," Slovenia's foreign ministry said in a post on social media site X, late Thursday.

ICC president Judge Tomoko Akane had urged the EU already in March this year to bring the ICC into the scope of the EU's blocking statute.

The new sanctions have been imposed at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier US sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.