Iran to sue US for assets seizure at The Hague: Rouhani

President Hassan Rouhani says Iran will soon lodge a complaint against Washington with The Hague over a US court ruling that paves the way for the use of billions of Tehran’s frozen assets.

“The government will never allow for the money that belongs to the Iranian nation be easily gobbled up by the Americans,” he told a large crowd in the southeastern city of Kerman on Tuesday.

Rouhani pledged that Iran would “take this case to the International Court [of Justice] in the near future and will not spare any effort towards the restoration of the nation’s rights through legal, political and banking channels.”

On April 20, the US Supreme Court ruled that nearly $2 billion of Iran’s frozen assets had to be turned over to the American families of the victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other attacks. The Islamic Republic has denied any role in the attacks.

The money, which belongs to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), had been blocked under US sanctions before the court ruling.

Tehran has denounced the seizure of the frozen assets as “highway robbery,” vowing that the Islamic Republic will retrieve the sum anyway.

Last week, 120 member states of the Non-Aligned Movement denounced the US ruling, calling it a violation of Washington’s international and treaty obligations concerning “the sovereign immunity of states.”

EA