US withdrawal from 1955 friendship treaty with Iran ‘legal evidence’ against Washington

By Islam Mohamed

The U.S. contentious move of withdrawing from a 63-year-old friendship treaty with Iran could be used as a legal evidence against Washington at the international courts.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo censured the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, which eases some U.S. sanctions on Iran, describing the ruling as “absurd. In return, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Gholam Hossein Dehqani said that U.S. withdrawal has no impacts on the ICJ ruling and its execution.

The ICJ will start on Monday a four-day consideration into a complaint filed by Tehran against Washington over violating the friendship deal via “illegally confiscating” $2 billion of Iranian Central Bank assets in the U.S.

The withdrawal came as a response to the court ruling. On Wednesday, the ICJ ruled that the U.S. has to lift  the sanctions on Iranian humanitarian aid, medical, food goods and aviation safety.

“U.S. withdrawal is not a surprising move as it had previously withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, and from other international treaties” professor and expert of the Iranian affairs in Faculty of Arts at Menoufya University Nourhan Ahmed Nour told al-Marjie.

“It was not the first time as U.S. withdrew twice from international treaties following ICJ rulings against its interests. One was during Reagan’s administration on a complaint filed by Nicaragua in 1984, and the second was in 2005 when the George W. Bush administration lost a case filed by Mexico,” she said.

The U.S. move means a rejection to the court ruling.  Despite that the ICJ initial ruling is binding, It has no authority to carry out it.

“The United States, which consistently defends the rules of international law, has abandoned this approach when it contradicts its interests,” she added.

National Security Adviser John Bolton has played a major role in this move as he considered that globalization restricts US sovereignty. So the US has to be away from the United Nations bodies and international organizations, including the International Court of Justice, Nour said.

Iranian newspapers wrote the ICJ ruling is a slap in the US face, she continued, adding that the court ruling has good influence on the Iranian diplomacy and foreign policies.

The expert did not rule out that Tehran could escalate its crackdown on individuals have links with the U.S., saying that the Tehran-Washington differences are endless.