Iran (IMNA) – “The United States’ declaration of new economic sanctions on Iran is far more than continued unlawful ‘economic warfare’ against a single country. It is an assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent Member State of the United Nations,” Baghaei wrote on X.
He said no state could lawfully compel foreign banks, enterprises or airports, each of which falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign, to abandon lawful commerce with a third state.
“Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law. They violate the principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter and breach the customary prohibition on intervention affirmed by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case,” the senior Iranian diplomat said.
He added that economic coercion aimed at forcing a sovereign state to alter its lawful policy choices constitutes an internationally wrongful act.
Baghaei further warned that when such measures are combined with a naval blockade amounting to military aggression, they reduce the sovereignty of other states to something “provisional, conditional, and revocable at the whim of another power.”
“Compliance purchases no immunity or respect; it merely concedes that one’s banks, enterprises, and airports operate only under a foreign licence,” he said.
“The end result would be the complete erosion of sovereignty as the foundational basis of the UN-based inter-State system, and a recipe for an abysmal return to full-scale classic colonialism,” Baghaei concluded.
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