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Iran's UN envoy: We will choose timing, manner of our lawful, proportionate response

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 14 June 2025 7:20 AM

Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the UN says the Islamic Republic's response to the latest Israeli military strikes will be lawful and proportionate, emphasizing that Tehran will determine the timing, place, and means of its decisive retaliation.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday evening local time, Amir Saeid Iravani stated that the United Nations Security Council emergency meeting discussed the brutal and criminal Israeli attacks against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He emphasized that his country will exercise its inherent right to self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter.

"Our response will be lawful, proportionate, and decisive. It will be carried out at a time and in a manner that we determine ourselves," Iravani pointed out.

The senior Iranian diplomat went on to strongly and unequivocally condemn the barbaric and criminal Israeli attack, besides a series of targeted assassinations against high-profile military officials, nuclear scientists, and innocent civilians.

'He noted that Israel - the most lawless and vicious regime in the world - with full intelligence and political support from the United States, conducted a series of coordinated and premeditated military attacks across multiple sites in Iran.

The senior Iranian diplomat argued that Israeli assaults are manifestly unlawful, and cannot be justified at all as an act of self-defense.

Iravani added that the acts of aggression and unlawful strikes targeted peaceful nuclear facilities, military sites, vital civilian infrastructure and residential areas.

He highlighted that Iran has also been the victim of a systematic campaign of assassination of its senior officials, scientists and innocent citizens, emphasizing that such targeted killings are in blatant violation of the fundamental principles of humanity.

"So far, seventy-eight people, including senior military officials, have been martyred and over 320 others injured, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, including women and children," the Iranian UN ambassador said.

Iravani stressed that the reckless Israeli attack on the Natanz nuclear facility, a safeguarded site under the full monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), risks catastrophic radiological consequences that would not be confined to Iran, but could spread across the region and beyond.

He underscored that Israeli actions stand in direct violation of numerous legal instruments, including the Charter of the United Nations, IAEA Statute as well as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and undermine regional as well as global peace and security.

The senior Iranian diplomat emphasized that Israeli acts of aggression were not merely an attack on his country.

"This is a direct assault on the international order, on the United Nations, and on any country that believes in the rule of law over the rule of force," Iravani stated.

Iravani added that Israeli officials have claimed responsibility for these heinous acts - fully backed by a permanent member of the Security Council, the United States. "This aggression is tantamount to a declaration of war," he said.

He emphasized that the Security Council must act immediately prevent the aggressor Zionist regime from continuing its actions. "It must condemn this aggression; it must fulfill its Charter obligations; and must defend the rule of law."

"It was the Israeli regime that attacked Iran. It was the Zionist entity that violated the international law. The Israeli regime must be held accountable. Silence is not neutrality; silence is complicity in this crime," Iravani concluded.