Iran was deprived of voting rights in the UN General Assembly due to "financial debt"
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman reacted to the news that Iran was deprived of its voting rights in the United Nations General Assembly due to heavy financial debt.
The amount of this debt has been announced at more than $16 million.
In a letter to Volkan Bozker, President of the 75th UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the implementation of Article 19 of the UN Charter regarding ten countries, including Iran.
According to Mr. Guterres, Iran and nine other countries, including Libya, Niger, Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, and Sao Tome and Principe, should not have voting rights in the General Assembly due to their financial debt to the United Nations.
The list of names of these ten countries was published on the United Nations website on January 14.
According to Article 19 of the UN Charter, any member state of the General Assembly that fails to pay its membership fees for more than two years will be deprived of its right to vote in the Assembly.
Reacting to the news of non-payment of membership dues to the United Nations, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday that the Iranian government has always paid its membership dues to the United Nations in recent years, despite the restrictions resulting from the "unilateral sanctions" of the United States, using "few financial transfer channels."
Saeed Khatibzadeh added: "This year, given the blocking of financial transfer channels by the United States, the organization has been negotiating with the United Nations Treasury for a long time about introducing a secure channel."
The Islamic Republic insists that due to the freezing of Iran's international assets by the United States government, the United Nations not use an American "intermediary bank" to transfer Iran's membership dues, or at least that the organization guarantee the security of the transfer route.
Source: Radio Farda
