Tehran will take the US and Israel to court over attacks on Iranian cultural sites, the Islamic Republic’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, has said.
A fragile ceasefire, which was established between the sides in early April after a month of intense hostilities initiated by the Americans and the Israelis, currently holds. However, there has been no progress in indirect peace talks, with both Washington and Tehran rejecting each other’s demands as unacceptable.
Gharibabadi wrote in a post on X on Sunday that at least 149 historical landmarks and museums in 20 Iranian provinces, including five UNESCO-registered sites, have been damaged by the US and Israeli bombardment.
The authorities in Tehran “will register, document, and pursue this assault on its cultural heritage within the framework of international responsibility; for it will allow no power to sacrifice the history of the great Iranian nation to its military and political objectives of today,” he wrote.
Cultural sites must be protected during conflicts in line with the 1954 Hague Convention and the fundamental rules of humanitarian law, the diplomat added.
“Iran’s cultural heritage is not merely a national asset of the Iranian people; it is part of humanity’s shared memory,” Gharibabadi said.
The Persian civilization, centered in modern-day Iran, is one of the world’s most historically influential and oldest cultures, stemming from the Achaemenid Empire founded in 550 BC.
The attacks on historic landmarks by Washington and West Jerusalem constitute “a clear manifestation of the lawless behavior of the American regime and the Zionist regime,” the deputy minister insisted.
The Iranian Ministry of Culture previously estimated that repairing the heritage sites damaged during the conflict would cost some 70 trillion rials (nearly $39 million).
The American wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have led to damage or destruction of multiple cultural heritage sites since the 1950s, but Washington had never been held liable. It’s increasingly difficult for foreign governments to sue the US in domestic or international courts due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity and its refusal to recognize compulsory jurisdiction of global legal bodies.
In early April, US President Donald Trump warned that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if it fails to accept American demands and faced instant international backlash, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying that he was “deeply troubled” by the statement and Pope Leo XIV calling it “truly unacceptable.”
Trump reiterated his threat on Sunday, saying that “there won’t be anything left” of the country if it doesn’t make swift concessions. The Iranian Defense Ministry replied by saying that it’s “fully prepared” to repel a possible new American and Israeli attack.