UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to come to the Iranian parliament after Iranian parliamentarians criticized the UN chief for his biased attitude towards human rights issues in Muslim states and said they want to question him about his performance, FNA reported.
Ban Ki-moon will attend a meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani at the premises of the parliament in Tehran on Wednesday.
Ban's visit to the Iranian parliament comes against a backdrop of the Iranian legislature's harsh criticism of the performance of the UN chief in a large number of areas, including his decisions and actions in dealing with human rights issues.
Iranian parliamentarians said on Saturday that they want to meet Ban Ki-moon to ask him about his biased attitude towards certain global issues and developments, including human rights issues.
Speaking to FNA, member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Esmayeel Kosari expressed the hope that Ban Ki-moon would accept the invitation of the parliament's Human Rights Committee and join the committee members in a meeting on the sidelines of the upcoming conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran, adding that the meeting would be in the interest of both sides.
As regards the topic of the discussions, Kosari said, "We believe that Mr. Ban Ki-moon does not have a fair attitude towards international developments and his decisions are essentially biased. Therefore, we are willing to hear Mr. Secretary-General's explanations in this regard."
Chairman of the parliament's Human Rights Committee Hadi Shoushtari had also told FNA on Saturday that the Iranian legislature planned to invite Ban Ki-moon to take part in the meeting.
"We ask Ban Ki-moon to respond to a number of questions of the Iranian parliamentarians at a meeting with the Islamic Consultative Assembly's (parliament's) Human Rights Committee," Shoushtari told FNA.
Shoshtari said that the members of the Human Rights Commission are serious about the meeting with the UN chief as they have many shortcomings with regard to his behavior.
The UN secretary-general will attend the 16th heads-of-state conference of NAM in Tehran on Thursday and Friday despite the attempts made by the US and Israel to prevent his presence in the international event.