Iran urged the United Nations to intervene against the US-Israeli plans to assassinate high ranking officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, calling such acts “state sponsored terrorism”.

Iranian ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, in an official letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday, March 26, called the Israeli-American plots to kill Iranian state leadership a “criminal policy” which sets the wrong precedent and violates international law.

Iravani cited reports in Western media about the US-Israeli plots to eliminate Iranian leadership, noting how they are not abandoned but merely “postponed” for the time being.

Both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters have reported that Araghchi and Ghalibaf were on the US-Israeli assassination target list. According to Reuters, they were apparently “given reprieve” for a few days after Pakistan pressed the US not to target them, in light of potential negotiations with the US.

Dozens of Iran’s top military and political leadership have been assassinated by the US and Israel as a part of their policy of forcing “regime change” on the country. An objective that has been declared since the beginning of the war.

Top Iranian leaders killed by the US and Israel include Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and head of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, among others.

Read more: Iran confirms Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, killed in US-Israeli attacks

Khamenei was killed in his official residence on the very first day of the US-Israeli aggression on February 28.

Most of these leaders were killed in indiscriminate bombings, which also killed hundreds of other people, mostly common citizens.

“The promotion of the term ‘kill lists’ should be seen as another manifestation of the same terrorist acts that initiated a criminal war against Iran and have so far resulted in the deaths of more than three thousand civilians,” Iravani said in the letter.

Normalization of most abhorrent violations of human rights

Addressing an urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, Araghchi termed the US-Israeli attacks on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary girls school in Minab “calculated and phased.”

Over 170 girls were killed when at least three US-Israeli missiles hit the school on February 28. The UNHRC meeting was called to discuss this particular incident.

After first denying its involvement, the US has now claimed it is conducting an investigation in the matter, suggesting that it might have been an accident.

Araghchi, however, called it unbelievable that the attack on the school was not planned given the sophisticated military and technological capabilities both the US and Israel have.

“This barbaric attack is but the visible tip of a far bigger iceberg, one that conceals beneath its surface far graver catastrophes, namely the normalization of the most abhorrent violations of human rights and humanitarian law and the audacity to commit atrocity crimes with impunity,” Araghchi said.

He also noted that US-Israeli attacks have destroyed more than 600 schools and killed or wounded over 1,000 students and teachers in the country since February 28.

The attack on the school is a war crime and there must be global condemnation and proper accountability for those who are responsible, Araghchi said, underlining that global silence on prior conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon has encouraged the rulers in the US and Israel to intensify their atrocities.

Trump postpones attacks on Iranian energy facilities, again

In a post on his social media on Friday, US President Donald Trump postponed proposed attacks on Iran’s energy and power plants until April 6, citing ongoing talks with Iran.

Iran has denied there were any talks taking place with the US. It has also rejected Trump’s 15-point proposal presented to it through Pakistan on Wednesday.

Iran has presented its own conditions to end the war and rejected the possibility of opening the Strait of Hormuz for the US and its allies before all its conditions are met and the war ends.

Trump had first threatened attacks on Iranian power plants if it failed to open the Strait of Hormuz. His 48-hour “ultimatum” expired on Monday when he suddenly declared its postponement for another five days, claiming there were “good and productive talks” going on with the Iranians.

Iran has claimed it won’t negotiate with the US until all aggressions stop and the US and Israel agree to its basic conditions, which includes the withdrawal of US military bases from the region and war remuneration, among others.

Nearly 2,000 Iranians have been killed and over 24,000 others have been injured in US-Israeli attacks on the country since February 28, as per the latest data released by the country’s health ministry on Thursday.

Scores of Israeli citizens, residents of some of the countries in the Persian Gulf, and over a dozen US soldiers have also been killed in the Iranian retaliations.

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