UNSC Set To Meet In Emergency On Israeli Strike On Iran’s Consulate In Damascus

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Apr, 2024) The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is set to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon in the wake of a deadly Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus, diplomats said.

"After Israel's airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus today, Iranians have turned to the UN Security Council to condemn this action," Russia's First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said in a post on X.

"Following their letter, we have requested an open briefing of the UN Security Council. The Maltese presidency has scheduled it for 3:00 p.m. New York time (01 an PST Wednesday) p.m."

In Islamabad, the Foreign office strongly condemned the attack as an "unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of Syria and undermines its stability and security, and a violation of international law and the UN Charter.

"Attacks against diplomats or diplomatic facilities are also illegal under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961," Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement.

Several other Islamic countries also slammed the strikes.

At UN Headquarters in New York, Iran's Mission to the to the United Nations sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNSC President Vanessa Frazier of Malta, calling on the world body to denounce Israel's "heinous and abhorrent terrorist attack” that killed seven military advisors of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

The strike was a “flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises,” read the letter authored by Iran's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Zahra Ershadi.

It carried "far-reaching international implications" that can exacerbate regional tensions.

"The aggressor Zionist regime bears full responsibility for its consequences," the letter further said, stressing that the Islamic Republic “reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to take a decisive response to such reprehensible acts."