Iran said Tuesday it was "completely unfair" for US lawyers to try to seize its overseas assets as compensation for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 2012, a New York judge ordered Iran to pay $7 billion in damages to the families and estates of victims from the attacks, arguing that the country had aided Al-Qaeda by allowing the group's members to travel through its territory.
Since Iran rejects the accusation and refuses to pay the money, the lawyers are now trying to access $1.6 billion of Iranian money frozen in a Luxembourg bank, according to a report in The New York Times on Monday.
"Some opponents of the Islamic republic of Iran... have tried to broaden a US domestic law - which is completely unfair and baseless - to apply outside America," said deputy foreign minister Majid Takht Ravanchi, according to the IRNA news agency.