Newsletters
Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the United Kingdom on Thursday over its decision to allow the United States to use British military bases and facilities for strikes against Iran, calling the move a violation of the U.N. Charter and international law, as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) separately warned the U.K. against further involvement following the U.S. use of a British air base to launch strikes.
In a statement, Iran's Foreign Ministry "strongly condemns" the decision by what it called the UK's "new ruling administration" to make its military bases and facilities available to prepare and facilitate what it described as illegal U.S. military attacks against Iran.
The ministry said the decision "clearly violates the fundamental principles and rules of the U.N. Charter and international law" and, citing Article 3(f) of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3314 on the definition of aggression, said it would constitute an act of aggression against Iran.
The ministry said British policymakers are making this decision fully aware that U.S. military attacks on Iran, which it said began with the participation of what it called "the occupying and genocidal Israeli regime" and have continued since, represent "a clear act of aggression and a flagrant violation" of the U.N. Charter's foundational principles, and said any participation in preparing or carrying out these "illegal attacks" would amount to complicity in the crime of aggression and war crimes.
The ministry said the UK government, both in its national capacity and as a permanent U.N. Security Council member, had chosen to align with what it called the "aggressor parties" rather than fulfilling what it described as its legal and moral obligations to condemn military aggression and war crimes and said this "undoubtedly further discredits" British claims of supporting the rule of law, human rights, and international peace and security.
Separately, in a statement carried by Tasnim News Agency, the IRGC's public relations office said its forces conducted what it described as combined strikes early Thursday, in the 26th wave of "Operation Nasr 2," against a U.S. electronic warfare unit at the Al-Adiri base, claiming to have destroyed the unit and to have killed or wounded a number of personnel in a strike on the unit's barracks, as well as striking and damaging the base's flight control tower.
The statement said that after U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean exhausted their cruise missile stocks, U.S. forces had begun using B-1 bombers flown from the United Kingdom's RAF Fairford base.
"As officials of the Foreign Ministry have also stated, any base used for aggression against Iranian territory is our legitimate target," the IRGC statement said, directing a message specifically at the U.K.: "We warn the British monarchy regime, which has been the main cause of the misfortunes of the people of our region... and has had the greatest involvement in the recent aggressions of America and the Zionist regime against Iran, not to make its file any heavier than this."
The IRGC statement also accused the U.S. of seeking to use offers of renewed negotiations as a pretext to "catch its breath" and rearm before resuming attacks, saying: "This time we will not allow America to replace its oil and ammunition reserves through deceptive ceasefires and then resume attacks again."
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
4 min read
