The following is an excerpt of the US State Department daily briefing conducted on Tuesday, 5 July 2011:
Q: …on Iran: Yesterday, a senior Iranian lawmaker was saying that he plans to, with parliament, try to bring lawsuits against 26 U.S. officials and former officials on human rights charges and would be tried in absentia, and that there’s also been some sort of motion of Iranian parliament to try and do this. I was just wondering what your reaction would be to this kind of event.
Ms. Nuland: We’ve seen it. I would call it a pretty clumsy tit-for-tat in response to the multiple human rights sanctions that the international community has leveled in the direction of Iran.