In a comprehensive foreign ministry statement, Iran said the U.S. naval blockade, which it noted falls under the UN General Assembly’s definition of aggression, and brutal attacks on military and civilian targets and infrastructure inside and outside Iran constitute a flagrant violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
The ministry stressed thhat the UN Security Council has failed to act, likening the UNSC inaction to its council’s during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. It said the UN secretary-general had offered only “vague and ambiguous statements” without meaningful measures.
The statement said U.S. actions over the past 15 months clearly meet all three criteria under Article 39 of the Charter requiring Security Council intervention: threat to peace, breach of peace and act of aggression.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran outlined a detailed account of U.S. “lies” and “pre-planned” violations of the June 18 ceasefire. It said that between July 5 and 17, U.S. frigates were repeatedly detected moving alongside large oil and LNG carriers, and that the U.S. military had repeatedly used commercial vessels to move personnel, equipment and military hardware. The main reason ships transited the southern route with their trackers off, it said, was to evade monitoring by Iran’s armed forces.
Back in July, the ministry said, a U.S. warship sheltered behind a giant LNG carrier while using the unsafe and illegal southern route, a “dangerous and irresponsible” act that showed America’s “clear intent to misuse the ceasefire to prepare hostile actions against Iran.”
It said the U.S. pretext for launching a new round of attacks that same day — alleged incidents involving three ships — was fabricated. The three vessels’ flag states had knowingly attempted to send the ships through an unauthorised and unsafe route in the Strait of Hormuz imposed by the U.S., in violation of Article 5 of the ceasefire agreement which placed future management of the strait with Iran, the statement said.
Iran stressed that it has “no hostility toward the countries of the region” and seeks friendly relations with all southern Persian Gulf neighbours. But it warned that under the UN definition of aggression, allowing aggressor parties to use a country’s territory and facilities for illegal attacks on another country constitutes an act of aggression, and said Iranian defensive strikes on the origin of such attacks could not be portrayed as attacks on the host nations.
The ministry concluded by saying Iran would continue its “powerful defence of national dignity and independence against the savage and unrestrained onslaught of the American-Zionist coalition of evil.”
MNA
