Iranian people attend a gathering to mark top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani's second martyrdom anniversary in Tehran, Iran, January 3 (XINHUA)

On the second anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran condemned this criminal act as “a clear manifestation of a terrorist attack that was orchestrated and carried out in organized manner by the then U.S. Government for which the White House is now responsible.”

Soleimani was a key player in the creation of peace and stability at the regional and international levels, exerting many an effort to combat international terrorism and growing terrorist units across the region.

The commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and his Iraqi comrade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Second in Command of the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units, were both killed along with their companions in a U.S. drone strike authorized by former President Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.

Five days later, in a military operation codenamed Operation Martyr Soleimani, the IRGC launched a volley of ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq's western province of Anbar.

Iran believes the U.S. Government bears "definitive international responsibility for this crime,” with all agents, instigators, contributors and perpetrators held accountable. Therefore, in cooperation with other agencies and under the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has adopted a number of measures from the very onset based on its legal principle of "combating the impunity of criminals" to hold such individuals and entities liable before the courts. And Iran will see this through to the end.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on January 3 of the nation's revenge for the U.S. assassination of Soleimani in case “those involved in and behind the criminal act are not prosecuted through a just mechanism.” The president said both Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo must be punished.

According to the ministry, the death of Soleimani and his companions not only did not “diminish the capacity of the Axis of Resistance,” which includes Iran, Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah, but even strengthened Iran’s “national cohesion and unity” and “further highlighted the strategy and discourse of the Resistance.”

In following up on this issue, it is necessary to point to the “continuation of endeavors by the Joint Judicial Committee between Iran and Iraq.” Iran has always taken effective and active measures to establish peace and stability in the region. Now, according to the approaches of the country’s 13th government, which reaches out to the neighbors of Iran for extensive and stable engagement and cooperation, the groundwork for the development and strengthening of relations among the region’s countries is laid more firmly than ever before, the ministry concluded.

This is a contribution by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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