Iran has strongly condemned the United States’ recent airstrikes on Iraq and Syria as illegal and a blatant violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani made the remarks while addressing a UN Security Council meeting on threat to international peace and security on Monday.
His comments came after US military forces struck more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria overnight Friday, . The airstrikes were carried out over 30 minutes, using more than 125 precision munitions.
The US claims the strikes came in response to a drone attack that killed several American soldiers at a remote base in Jordan.
“The US military action is illegitimate, illegal, and unjustified and blatantly violates the basic norms and principles of international law, [and] the United Nations Charter, particularly Paragraph 4 of Article 2 of the Charter,” he said, adding, “It is a flagrant breach of Iraq and Syria’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence.”
The Iranian envoy also strongly condemned “the joint military actions of the United States and the United Kingdom against Yemen, which constitute an obvious violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.”
Iravani noted that such illegal strikes target “civilians and vital infrastructure, jeopardize regional peace and security as well as posing a serious threat to international peace and security.”
He asserted that “the United States continues to occupy Syrian territory, loot Syrian property and resources, and support separatists and terrorist groups” in the country while “people in Syria are experiencing economic hardship and a humanitarian crisis as a result of the United States’ hostile and harmful actions.”
The Iranian ambassador said following its unlawful military intervention in Iraq in 2003, “the US and the so-called coalition ignored Iraqis’ opinions and aspirations and continued illegal activities and presence under the guise of fighting terrorism.”
“All these measures violate international law, the UN Charter, and related Security Council resolutions,” he asserted.
Resistance groups in region independent, their actions legitimate under intl. law
Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s UN ambassador touched on anti-Israeli and anti-US operations by various resistance groups across the West Asia region.
He said, “All of the resistance groups in the region are independent and their decisions and actions are motivated by their legitimate rights under international law, which include ending the illegal presence of the US in their territories, stopping the genocide in Gaza, and ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories.”
“Therefore, any attempt to attribute these actions to Iran or its Armed forces is misleading, baseless, and unacceptable,” Iravani said.
“It is evident to everyone that the root causes of the current situation in the region are occupation, aggression, and the continued genocide and horrific atrocities committed by the Israeli regime and fully supported by the US against innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he added.
Iravani said Iran believes that “the only solution to end the conflict in the region and prevent the spillover of the war is … to force Israel to stop the genocide in Gaza, to establish an immediate ceasefire [there], to end the presence of US Forces in Iraq and Syria, and to exert pressure to end the occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli regime.”
