Iran’s FM To Address UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Despite Protest Crackdown

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was scheduled to deliver an address to the United Nations Human Rights Council today in Geneva. The invitation to a representative of the Islamic Republic has come under harsh criticism from many countries, nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists due to the current crackdown by the regime on antigovernment protests touched off by the death in September of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also is scheduled to attend the meeting despite the country’s war on Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also is expected to speak by video message. The council meets three times a year. Abdollahian said in an interview released late om Sunday night that Iran has not withdrawn from negotiations aimed at reviving the 2015 deal on its nuclear program, known as the Joint Cooperative Plan of Action, and blamed the United States for the delay in reaching an agreement. “If the Americans will act realistically, and not repeat their former tricky media approach, we will in a short while reach an agreement,” Abdollahian said in an interview with Al Alam television.