Iranian diplomat: US attack on Syria to harm UN’s credibility

A senior Iranian diplomat lashed out at the US-led war rhetoric against Syria, reiterating that any unilateral attack on Damascus will harm the United Nations’ credibility. “In the current debates regarding the authorization of military intervention against Syria, there is understandably great skepticism of both the legitimacy and legality of such a disastrous course of action,” Head of the Press Office for Iran’s Diplomatic Mission to the UN Alireza Miryousefi wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post. “Article 2 of the UN Charter prohibits all member-states from the threat or use of force against any other member-states, reflecting the norms of the post-World War II global order,” the diplomat added. Miryousefi underlined that there is evidence that chemical weapons have been smuggled to the Syrian armed rebels, as communicated to the United States through a Swiss channel by the Iranian foreign ministry nine months ago. “The American public has not been convinced of the legality of an attack on Syria, which has been also questioned by UN officials,” he said. In similar remarks on Saturday, a prominent Iranian legislator blasted the US and its allies’ warmongering policies against Syria, saying that they have planned a war on Damascus in a bid to protect Israel's security. “American officials have repeatedly announced that Israel’s security is the security of the US, and under this pretext, they have fanned the flames of a civil war in Syria to, as they put it, break the axis of resistance,” Rapporteur of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini said today. The senior Iranian lawmaker reiterated that Syria is fighting in the frontline of war against Israel. The US, Israel and France have adopted the rhetoric of war against Syria over allegations that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack near Damascus. The call for military strike intensified after the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed on August 21 that hundreds had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar. The Syrian government has strongly denied the claim, accusing the militants of the attack.