Aref: Tehran concerned regional aggression becomes routine
UN chief raps US-Israel onslaught against Iran as ‘illegal’
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on Tuesday that Iran is concerned that acts of aggression against countries, like the July US-Israel’s strikes on Iran, may become routine and destabilize the West Asia region.
“If the United Nations had taken more appropriate action, we would not be witnessing these events and tragedies in Palestine and Gaza today," Aref told the UN Secretary General António Guterres in a meeting held in Awaza, Turkmenistan, where they participated in the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries.
“We expect the United Nations to actively take effective measures and increase its support to deter the Zionist regime. The Islamic Republic of Iran has always declared its cooperation and assistance to the United Nations in pursuit of establishing peace in the world, and we expect that the Iranophobia policy being pursued by the West will be condemned by the United Nations,” Iran’s vice president said.
The UN secretary general called the strikes by Israel and the US on Iran “illegal and in violation of international law.”
He stressed that the issue of Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved through diplomatic means, saying, “We are prepared to make use of all the UN’s capacities to help settle Iran’s nuclear issue diplomatically.”
On June 13, the Israeli regime assaulted Iran by attacking several civilian, military, and nuclear facilities. The regime’s strikes killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including civilians and top military commanders, and wounded 5,750 people.
On June 22, the US joined the Isreal’s aggression and attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Israel’s aggression on Iran came two days before the sixth round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US.
"The United States, by supporting the Zionist regime and even directly intervening in this aggression and attack on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities, torpedoed the negotiation table,” Aref said in his address to the international conference.
He said that Iran has never been the initiator of war, but it has confronted the aggressor with full force, defended its territorial integrity, and is pursuing compensation for the damage caused by the aggression against the people and the country’s development infrastructure through legal and international bodies.