Striking Iran’s energy infrastructure flagrant violation of Intl. law: UN envoy

Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations says the recent US-Israeli attack on Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure at South Pars Gas Field is a “flagrant” violation of international law, condemning the airstrike as a “heinous crime.” 

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN Security Council and the chief of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday evening, Amir Saeed Iravani condemned the “criminal and terrorist attack” on Iran’s largest gas processing installations known as South Pars Gas Field at the early hours of the day, expressing grave concern that the attack poses a “serious threat to international peace and security.”

Iravani stressed that the two aggressors – the US and the Israeli regime – “deliberately” targeted South Pars Gas Field, adding that several phases of the gas processing installations were rendered “inoperative and temporarily taken offline” as a result of the “criminal” strikes.

Iran’s UN envoy also emphasized that these facilities constitute critical civilian infrastructure essential to the provision of energy, economic stability, and the welfare of millions of civilians.

“These criminal and terrorist attacks constitute a grave and flagrant violation of international law, including the core principles of international humanitarian law. The deliberate targeting of civilian objects, including critical energy infrastructure, is strictly prohibited under the law of armed conflict and amounts to a war crime,” Iravani stressed.

He warned that “such unlawful actions carry a high risk of severe environmental damage and catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including disruptions to essential services, economic hardship, and threats to civilian life.”
He also said that the US and Israel “bear full international responsibility for these heinous crimes, as well as for violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and for the resulting loss of civilian life and the extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure across the country.”

Iravani stressed that “in response to these deliberate and unlawful attacks on Iran's civilian infrastructure”, the Islamic Republic “reserves its inherent right of self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations and will take all necessary and proportionate measures to fully safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and vital national interests.”

Following the attack on South Pars Gas Field, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued an urgent evacuation order for people living near key energy-production facilities in three Persian Gulf Arab states, namely Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The IRGC’s note added that the rulers of the Persian Gulf Arab states had ignored Iran’s warnings, persisting in “blind subservience” and making decisions that do not reflect the will of their peoples.

“We have repeatedly warned your leaders against following this dangerous path and dragging their peoples into a major gamble with their fate,” the note said, warning, “Therefore, they bear full responsibility for all consequences that will result from this course.”

Later on Wednesday, Iran hit Ras Laffan refinery in Qatar in retaliation, prompting US President Donald Trump to blame Israel for the attack on the South Pars Gas Field and claimed that he had no prior knowledge of Tel Aviv’s plan for the airstrike.

The American president also pledged on his Truth Social – partly in all caps for emphasis – that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field.”

This is while senior American and Israeli officials said earlier that the US was fully aware that Israel planned to strike Iran’s South Pars Gas Field and that Washington even approved the attack.

The escalation targeting energy infrastructure marks a significant widening of the conflict, with potential global economic ramifications. International oil prices surged following the South Pars attack, with Brent crude rising above $113 per barrel.

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