MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Tehran has denounced the US airstrikes against IS targets in Syria as an illegal action and violating the Arab country's sovereignty.
"These bombings [launched by US in Syria] do not have any legal standing so we can interpret them as an attack," claimed Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, as cited by the Wall Street Journal.
The American Air Force conducted airstrikes Islamic State targets in Syria's Raqqa and the surrounding countryside on early Tuesday. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have taken part in the strikes along with the United States, CNN reports, quoting a senior US military official.
"With the airstrikes, the United States enters a new level of engagement in the ongoing Syrian civil war," stresses CNN.
The New York Times points out "that the strikes were not coordinated" with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, since US President Obama claimed the Syrian leader had "lost his legitimacy to rule and should step down."
"We did not request the regime’s permission. We did not coordinate our actions with the Syrian government. We did not provide advance notification to the Syrians at a military level, or give any indication of our timing on specific targets," said Jen Psaki, a State Department spokesperson, as cited by the New York Times. She added that Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations, had earlier informed the Syrian permanent UN representative about the preplanned US military strikes on IS targets in Syria.
According to Tasnim News Agency, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs considers the strikes as a violation of Syria's sovereignty and deplores the US’s "interfering approach" toward the Middle Eastern states. The diplomat underscores that the American "Hollywood-style adventurism" had led to the rise of terrorism in the region.
"From Tehran's viewpoint, no military action in the Syrian territories would be acceptable without permission from that country's government and observance of the international law, because the battle against terrorism could not justify the violation of the countries’ national sovereignty,”
Hossein Amir Abdollahian said as quoted by the Iranian state media outlet.
The diplomat notes that Tehran "is monitoring the US airstrikes on parts of Syria and the scope of them with sensitivity and carefulness."
