His threat had caused uproar. US President Donald Trump ruled out the possibility of hitting Iranian cultural sites on Tuesday as a possible retaliation.
"They have the right to kill our nationals [...] and according to various laws, we are supposed to be careful with their cultural heritage ...", lamented Donald Trump from the Oval Office when receiving Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. "But if it's the law, I like to obey the law," he added.
The controversy was born from a tweet in which the American president threatened to aim - "very quickly and very hard" he writes in capitals - 52 sites if the Islamic Republic reacted militarily to avenge the death of the powerful general Qassem Soleimani, killed on Friday in Iraq by an American strike.
.... targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020These 52 sites - a figure which refers to the number of Americans held hostage, from the end of 1979, at the United States Embassy in Tehran - are "of very high standard and very important for Iran and for Iranian culture, "he said.
" War crime "
These remarks had put the tenant of the White House in overhang with the head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo, who hammered for his part that the United States would respect "international law" in the event of reprisals against Tehran.
The Director General of Unesco, Audrey Azoulay, for her part recalled that the United States had ratified two conventions, of 1954 and 1972, protecting cultural property in the event of conflict.
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Targeting cultural sites would constitute a "war crime", as committed by the Islamic State group, reacted the head of Iranian diplomacy Mohammad Javad Zarif.