Winston Peters says New Zealanders in Iran need to get out of the country

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealanders in Iran need to get out of the country as tensions between the Middle Eastern nation and the United States grow.

Peters announced travel bans on some Iranian ministers yesterday, which prompted the Iranian Embassy to accuse New Zealand of “misinformation” and taking “inhumane measures”.

Peters told Ryan Bridge TODAY it would be a disaster should the United States and Iran go to war, but that “sadly, that is a high potential now”.

The US has amassed a large naval and air force in the Middle East, with President Donald Trump saying in his State of the Union speech that the country was seeking missiles that could strike US territory.

A few months ago, Foreign Affairs sent a plane to the Iranian border to attempt to evacuate people before finding out that the “threat had broken”.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has advised all New Zealanders in Iran to leave the country Photo / Mark Mitchell

Yesterday morning, Peters said travel bans would target 40 individuals “who have perpetrated human rights abuses in Iran”, listing Minister of the Interior Eskandar Momeni, Minister of Intelligence Esmail Khatib and Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad and others.

The sanctions follow “the brutal killing of thousands of protesters”, Peters said.

“Iranians have the right to peaceful protest, freedom of expression and access to information. Those rights have been ruthlessly violated.”

Protests across the country broke out in late December and early January over economic grievances, which were met with a violent crackdown by the theocratic regime.

A fresh wave started last week, led by students at several universities.

The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran said it rejected the bans.

“This measure is politically motivated, based on misinformation, and aligned with a pattern of selective and instrumental use of the concept of ‘human rights’ against independent states,” it said.

“Such actions neither contribute to constructive engagement nor reflect a genuine commitment to international law.”

Peters dismissed the embassy’s claims this morning as he said “that’s the kind of thing some countries like Iran will say in attempting to have excused the totally inexcusable”.

“Let’s be serious. It’s just not true. It’s false. They [Iran] have had so many proxies for terror around the world that they’ve supported, including the operations in Australia, that we have to take action as best we can with others."

Peters said Iran “should most definitely not” have a nuclear programme.

New Zealand has not received any communications from the United States about potential military action against Iran, Peters said.