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Tehran raps US escalation in Caribbean as ‘serious threat’ to global peace
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, warned on Wednesday that recent US actions in Latin America and the Caribbean pose a “serious threat” to international peace and security, accusing Washington of violating the UN Charter.
Speaking at a session of the UN Conference on Disarmament, Bahreini highlighted years of “illegal sanctions, unilateral coercive measures, and attempts at regime change and even assassination of lawful officials” in Venezuela. He said the recent deployment of a US naval fleet and nuclear submarine to the Caribbean “openly threatens the political independence and territorial integrity of Venezuela.”
The US claims the deployment targets narcotics trafficking and accuses Venezuela of collaborating with drug cartels, while Caracas views the buildup as a threat to its sovereignty.
Bahreini described these actions as a “clear violation of fundamental principles of international law,” including Article 2 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force, obliges states to resolve disputes peacefully, and forbids interference in the internal affairs of other nations.
“The very purpose of the United Nations is to uphold the rule of law in international relations, not to impose power and pressure,” he said, regretting that the recent US attack on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities in cooperation with Israel, showed Washington’s disregard for diplomacy.
The US joined Israel in its aggression against Iran in June, bombarding the country’s three main nuclear sites.
The envoy stressed that threatening a non-nuclear NPT member with a nuclear submarine by a permanent Security Council member “delivers a serious blow to the disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”
He further argued that the move violates the Treaty of Tlatelolco, a regional pact that establishes Latin America and the Caribbean as a nuclear-weapon-free zone, to which the United States is a signatory under Protocol II.
Calling on the international community to act before the crisis escalates into “all-out confrontation,” Bahreini urged Washington to withdraw its military forces from the Caribbean, respect Venezuela’s sovereignty, and commit to resolving disputes through diplomacy and international law.
He concluded by warning that “provocative behavior by a nuclear-armed state against a non-nuclear country once again demonstrates how real the risk of nuclear weapons use remains.” The only credible guarantee against such a threat, he said, was “complete, verifiable, and irreversible nuclear disarmament.”
"Until such a goal is achieved, providing binding legal assurances of non-use and non-threat of use against non-nuclear states remains an undeniable necessity," he concluded.