Tehran, Iran – Iran has said it will not cooperate with a United Nations fact-finding mission on its response to ongoing anti-government demonstrations due to what it calls the investigation’s “political” nature.

Tehran will have “no form of cooperation with this political committee which has been framed as a fact-finding committee”, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told reporters during a news conference on Monday.

Last week, Iran announced it had formed a local fact-finding mission, comprised of representatives from the government, the judiciary, the parliament and others, to investigate “events, riots and unrest” during the past few weeks. According to Kanani, this constituted a “responsible” act by the Iranian state and refuted any need for a UN investigation.