US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned Iran on Friday that no government can legitimately deny human rights, adding that the regime is “now on notice.”
Haley’s comments come as the United Nations Security Council met to discuss Iran after the US requested an emergency session amid protests in the country.
“Human rights are not the gift of governments, they are the inalienable rights of the people themselves,” Haley said. “The Iranian regime is now on notice, the world will be watching what you do.”
She added: “Freedom and human dignity cannot be separated from peace and security. When the rights of the people are denied, the people rightly resist. If the concerns are not acknowledged, then peace and security are inevitably threatened.”
Haley said that “in the end, the Iranian people will determine their own destiny,” and she reiterated US support for the protesters.
“And let there be no doubt whatsoever, the United States stands unapologetically with those in Iran who seek freedom for themselves, prosperity for their families and dignity for their nation,” she added.
A representative from Iran was also present at Friday’s meeting.
The US has been vocal in its support of the demonstrators and offered harsh condemnation of the Iranian government, including a tweet from President Donald Trump that called the Iranian regime “brutal and corrupt.”
For its part, Iran has accused the US of “grotesque” meddling in social media to incite unrest — and thus tampering with Iranian affairs, according to a letter sent to the UN on Thursday.
Haley said earlier this week that the US wanted emergency meetings in New York and in Geneva at the Human Rights Council to discuss the Iran situation.
Russia scoffed at the idea.
A tweet Tuesday from the Russian mission to the UN raised the idea of the Security Council meeting about protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister has called the US proposal “harmful and destructive.”
Differences in opinion between the US and Europe over how to address the situation in Iran may also manifest themselves during the emergency meeting on Friday.
“The United States has spoken clearly and unequivocally,” Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Wednesday. “Unfortunately, many of our European partners, as well as the United Nations, have thus far failed to forcefully speak out on the growing crisis in Iran. It’s time for them to stand up.”
While the US and its European partners — including the United Kingdom, France and Germany — all fundamentally support the right of Iranian demonstrators to peacefully protest, they disagree in their analysis of where the situation on the ground is headed and over the strategic value of ramping up the rhetoric publicly, sources have told CNN.
Uncertainty over how long the protests will continue has prompted European countries to collectively take a much more cautious approach to what it says publicly than the US.