Iran Files Complaint against US over Airspace Violation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran has formally filed a complaint to the United Nations Security Council against the US over an American spy drone that violated the Iranian airspace on July 20, a ranking diplomat said.
“The (Iranian) Foreign Ministry filed a complaint to the UN Security Council and the organization’s president (Mansour al-Otaibi) after a US spy drone violated Iran's airspace and was shot down. It lodged the complaint under Article 51 of the UN Charter,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Gholam-Hossein Dehqani said on Friday.
“The complaint states that Iran reserves the right to defend its maritime borders and confront any violation in case such acts are repeated. The US side claims that the drone had not entered the Iranian airspace. This is while they cannot corroborate such an allegation because it went down in the Iranian territory after being targeted,” he added, Press TV reported.
Last week, Iran’s Vice President for Legal Affairs La'ya Joneidi threatened that the Islamic Republic will take legal action against the US for the “violation of international law” by deploying a spy drone into Iranian airspace.
In the early hours of June 20, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force shot down the US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that intruded into the airspace of Iran.
The IRGC said the MQ-4C spy drone had taken off from a US military base in the United Arab Emirates, switched off all of its communication systems, and flew towards the port city of Chabahar via the Strait of Hormuz in maximum stealth.
When flying back to the western part of the region, the unmanned plane violated the Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz and began to spy on Iran and collect information, the IRGC added.
The intruding drone was shot by Iran’s homegrown air defense missile system “Khordad-3rd”.