H.E. Mr. Hossein Panahiazar:

I thank the Chairman and Senator Mullins for their comments and questions. The speech referred to by the Senator was a general one that applies to all of us, not just Iran. I mentioned earlier that we do not think Iran is perfect and indeed, no country in the world can claim to be so. What the Senator read are the ideals that we aspire to for everyone in the world. We want to see justice for everybody, including the people of Iran.

We have distributed a paper on human rights but I am not sure if the Senator has received it. That paper explains in detail what we are doing in terms of improving human rights in Iran. We are working closely with the UN Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and we hope that things will go well.

I believe the committee already knows that Mr. Nadarkhani has been released. The issue mentioned was not accepted by the court of appeal and he has been released.

Regarding executions, I have explained that criminal courts in Iran can sentence people to execution, as is the case in many countries throughout the world. Most of the cases where the death penalty is used in Iran relate to drug smuggling, which is one of the main problems in the country and region. If this problem is solved and the international community gets to its root cause, which is poverty in Afghanistan and the situation there, we can get rid of smuggling. We are not happy that people are executed and we know it is not the answer to the problem, but at present according to the criminal court if somebody is involved in smuggling drugs - not addicts - the punishment is execution.

The situation regarding Camp Ashraf has been resolved. The group resisted moving to the new camp because it was not ready but it has accepted the move and people are seeking refugee status in other countries so they can move there. Iran will welcome anyone interested in returning. Some people returned to Iran from Camp Ashraf and do not have any problems. Of course those who committed crimes will be tried on their return. Those who did not commit crimes should not worry about returning. We understand other countries are reluctant to accept as refugees those involved in terrorist activities in the past. This is the reality. We hope for a solution for these people, who have now moved to the new camp. The statement by the United States on removing the group from the designated list of terrorist organisations mentioned that the United States cannot forget the group's past terrorist activities which include killing US citizens. We have protested about this removal because we consider it to be a double-standard. We do not have good or bad terrorists; terrorism is terrorism and those considered good terrorists should remain on the list of terrorist groups. We have not seen changes in the group's policy. Terrorist operations supported by this group still occur in Iran. The most recent was the assassination of a scientist. Information has been published on the group's co-operation with intelligence services in killing nuclear scientists in Iran.