ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday criticized European countries for failing to enforce the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his visit to Hungary.
“By appeasing the Israeli regime, Europe is compromising its moral credibility and placing itself on the wrong side of a defining historical moment. It indeed dishonours the 'rule of law', betrays justice, and re-enforces impunity with all its lethal consequences for the innocent victims and the whole of humanity,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on X.
Baghaei said that the ICC warrant against Netanyahu “reflects widespread global outrage and disgust at the genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Gaza,” lamenting that the non-enforcement of the warrant is “justifying crime.”
The tribunal sent an arrest warrant to Hungary ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the country, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.
Issued last November, the ICC charged Netanyahu with war crimes and crimes against humanity - charges he strongly rejects.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced his country’s withdrawal from the ICC during a joint presser with Netanyahu on Thursday, saying it is no longer an "impartial court" but a "political court," according to a statement from his office.
“The reason for this is that we have become convinced that it has become a political court: in recent years it is no longer an impartial court, it is no longer a court based on the rule of law, but it is now a political court – and its decisions on Israel have shown this most clearly,” Orban said during the presser.
Calling Hungary a “very great friend of Israel,” Netanyahu praised Budapest and said it “defends us in the European Union and the UN, nad no less, in the corrupt international court in The Hague which is biased against all of us,” his office said on Sunday.
He also confirmed his visit to the United States from Hungary on Monday, where he is set to attempt to persuade President Donald Trump to reverse the 17 percent tariffs to be set on Israeli imports before they take effect.
Tensions between Iran and Israel escalated after the Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking an ongoing war that has since spread to Lebanon.