In a letter dated Monday to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the president of the Security Council, Gholamhossein Darzi, Iran’s ambassador and chargé d’affaires at the United Nations, said US forces attacked the Iranian island on the evening of Sunday, August 30.
The strike, he wrote, led to the martyrdom and injury of Iranian defenders of the homeland as well as civilians and caused damage to public and private property.
Tehran called the raid a clear violation of Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and a flagrant breach of Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
Darzi said the Islamic Republic “strongly condemns this unlawful act of aggression.”
He added that Iran’s armed forces, exercising their inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter, carried out defensive and proportionate attacks against US military bases in Jordan that had been used in Washington’s “criminal attacks and aggression” against Iran.
The letter placed the Larak strike in a broader pattern of hostility that began with a large-scale and unjustified US military attack on February 28.
Over the following six months, Tehran said, Washington and the Zionist regime have pursued an unlawful naval blockade, unilateral coercive measures amounting to “economic terrorism,” and other provocative and interventionist acts.
Those actions, Darzi wrote, constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law and amount to state terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The United States bears international responsibility for them, he said, and individuals who ordered, directed or carried out the attacks may face individual criminal responsibility.
Iran also held accountable any party that assists, facilitates, supports or takes part in the preparation or execution of such aggression, including for the extensive damage inflicted on the Iranian people.
Darzi stressed that the only source of insecurity for freedom of navigation and maritime security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is “the unlawful and aggressive conduct of the United States and the Zionist regime and their destabilizing adventurism.”
He called on the secretary-general and the Security Council to take all necessary measures to address the violation of Iran’s sovereignty, ensure accountability for the unlawful use of force, and prevent further escalation that threatens international peace and security.
Iran specifically asked the UN to demand that the United States immediately halt its attacks and end actions that endanger navigation and maritime safety in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The letter noted that Iran has shown restraint and acted in accordance with international law. At the same time, it warned that the Islamic Republic will take all necessary measures to protect its people, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate to exercise the inherent right of self-defense and will respond decisively and proportionately to any military aggression,” Darzi wrote.
Iran requested that the letter be issued and circulated as an official Security Council document.
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