UNITED NATIONS: Iran has asked the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene with the US government over a Supreme Court ruling that allows nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be paid to victims of terrorist attacks for which the country has been blamed.

“The Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is ready to help settle a dispute between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s frozen assets if both sides ask for his assistance” the UN said.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that “the secretary-general’s good offices are always available should both parties to whatever tensions or issue request it.”

In a letter to the UN secretary general sent on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javid Zarif argued that the US court decision will have “catastrophic implications” and “will cause systematic erosion” of the principal of state immunity.In the letter, released by the Iranian UN mission, Zarif asked Mr Ban Ki-moon to help secure the release of frozen Iranian assets in US banks and persuade

Washington to stop interfering with Iran’s international commercial and financial transactions. “This money belongs to Iran,” he said.

The US Supreme Court ruled last week that the families of victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran can collect nearly $2 billion in frozen funds from Iran as compensation.

The court’s ruling directly affects more than 1,300 relatives of victims, some who have been seeking compensation for more than 30 years. They include families of the 241 US service members who died in the Beirut bombing.

Iran denies any links to the attacks.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016