Iran Vows Legal Action against Perpetrators of General Soleimani Assassination
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran's Caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri said the country will utilize all available domestic and international legal resources to bring those involved in the assassination of Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani to justice.
Baqeri made these remarks to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday in New York, where he attended two United Nations Security Council meetings.
The Islamic Republic will spare no legal effort to ensure that “justice is served in the case,” he stated, adding, “This is our right.”
Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were assassinated in a US drone strike authorized by former president Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The commanders were highly revered across West Asia for their pivotal roles in combating the Daesh terrorist group, especially in Iraq and Syria.
Zakaria also asked Baqeri about a CNN report claiming that American authorities had obtained intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. The claim followed an assassination attempt on Trump while he was campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he sustained an injury to his right ear.
The Islamic Republic has firmly rejected the allegation, dismissing it as politically motivated.
Baqeri reiterated this stance, stating, “We have only used and will continue to use our own domestic legal and judicial frameworks and the (available) international ones towards (ensuring) administration of justice regarding those who had ordered, perpetrated, and advised the assassination of General Soleimani.”
In other comments, Baqeri criticized Israel for threatening to expand its ongoing genocidal war in the Gaza Strip to Lebanon.
“It seems like the Zionists are inclined to expand (existing) tensions to other parts of the region in order to make up for the failures and frustrations that they have suffered in Gaza,” he said.
Baqeri referred to Israel’s unsuccessful attempts to eliminate Gaza’s resistance movements, free captives held by these groups, and displace Gaza’s population to Egypt.
He called these attempts a “strategic mistake” that could bring “serious risks” for Tel Aviv.
Baqeri noted that several new fronts had opened against Israel since the onset of the Gaza war, with resistance groups from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen launching rockets and missiles at sensitive targets in the occupied Palestinian territories and disrupting Israeli-affiliated maritime activities.
“The crimes that the Zionists have perpetrated over the past nine months never managed to turn standing circumstances in their favor,” Baqeri said.
He added that continuing these crimes would not serve Israel’s interests and would activate further resistance against them, stating that ending the war on Gaza was “the only pathway that can save Zionists from further risks.”
