Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations has rejected the US’s arbitrary interpretation of Article 51 to justify its aggression against the country’s peaceful nuclear facilities.
In a letter to the UN chief and the rotating president of the Security Council on Wednesday, Amir Saeid Iravani brushed aside acting US envoy to the UN Dorothy Shea’s allegations that the strikes were a lawful act of collective self-defense under the United Nations Charter.
Iravani said the unlawful use of force against Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities cannot under any circumstances be considered a right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
He emphasized that the US’s arbitrary and unilateral interpretation of Article 51 is fundamentally incompatible with the UN Charter, international law and the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice.
According to UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, any preemptive use of force in the absence of an actual armed attack constitutes a clear example of an act of aggression, he added.
Based on well-known legal principles, the right of self-defense can only be invoked in response to an armed attack if the conditions of necessity and proportionality are fully met.
On June 13, Israel launched a blatant and unprovoked aggression against Iran, assassinating many high-ranking military commanders, nuclear scientists, and ordinary civilians.
More than a week later, the United States also joined Israel and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites in a grave violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
In response, Iranian armed forces targeted sensitive sites across the occupied territories and launched a wave of missiles at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest American military base in West Asia.
On June 24, Iran, through its successful retaliatory operations both against the Israeli regime and the US, managed to impose a halt to the Israeli-US aggression.
Iravani said Washington and Tel Aviv attempted to justify their assaults by citing an alleged nuclear threat attributed to Iran, a claim that lacks any valid legal or factual basis.
He also called on Security Council member states to strongly condemn the illegal use of force by the Israeli regime and the US against the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic, including its peaceful nuclear facilities.
The Israeli and US attacks constitute a gross violation of the UN Charter, international law, Security Council resolutions 2231 (2015) and 487 (1981), the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and relevant resolutions of the IAEA’s General Conference, the Iranian envoy noted.