US President Donald Trump joked on Friday (31 July) that he is not yet a target of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Meanwhile, his administration is keeping up a campaign against the court and urging member states to withdraw from it.
At a cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump said: “Anyway, there’s no information that they are after me. But it could happen.” Cabinet members burst into laughter as he spoke.
At the time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was setting out the US position against the ICC. Interrupting him, Trump said: “He’s not trying to protect me. He’s trying to protect Bibi (Benjamin Netanyahu) and some other people.”
He was using the nickname of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the ICC in 2024.
In mid-July the United States launched a major diplomatic campaign against the ICC. New sanctions were announced against the court, long the target of US criticism, and allies were urged to step away from the body.
The Trump administration’s relations with the ICC, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, are extremely poor. The United States has already imposed sanctions on several of the court’s judges.
Established in 2002, the ICC tries serious international crimes that the countries concerned are unwilling or unable to prosecute themselves.
Rubio on Friday called the ICC “an illegitimate international organisation.” Neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the treaty establishing the court.
“We asked them to reform and to listen to us. They did not. They are extremely arrogant. Now we have begun action to bring that court under control,” Rubio said.
He said five countries had left the ICC or were planning to, and called on other countries to take the same path. Both Chad and Venezuela have recently announced their withdrawal from the ICC.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report