He made the remark while addressing a local conference on preservation of cultural assets and world heritage.

“US President Donald Trump’s threats are the crystallization of hatred stemmed from humiliation. US President Donald Trump’s threat to target Iran’s cultural and civilization centers amounted to “Cultural Terrorism” and continuation of US disregard of International Law,” he said.

Zarif added that respecting civilization and cultural heritage is in fact to esteem humanity; and attacking the cultural heritage is actually attacking the soul of humanity and history.

He added that according to international agreements, like The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict signed in 1954, destroying cultural heritage is an unforgivable crime. And according to the Second Protocol to the same agreement, countries need to protect the cultural property even during armed conflicts.

Iranian foreign minister then mentioned the dangers of unilateralism, saying, “Unfortunately, the passive stance of countries and international organizations toward Trump’s unilateralism and violations of laws has made him more inclined to pursue a global bullying policy. In other words, ‘passive unilateralism’ encourages ‘active unilateralism’”.