Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations has written to the world body's secretary-general, vehemently condemning the Israeli regime's recent assassination of a senior Iranian military advisor in Syria.
Amir Saeid Iravani addressed the letter to Antonio Guterres and president of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
"Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right, under international law and the United Nations Charter, to respond decisively at an appropriate time deemed necessary," the envoy wrote.
Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi, a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was martyred in a missile attack by the Israeli regime against the Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday.
Mousavi was martyred while serving as part of Iran's military advisory mission in Syria.
The mission was the first to rush to Syria's assistance in 2014, when the Arab country found itself in the grip of the United States-created and Israeli-supported Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
Led by Iran's top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani -- who was assassinated by the US in Iraq four years ago -- the mission played an instrumental role in Damascus' successful counterterrorism push that ultimately defeated the terror outfit in late 2017.
'Heinous, cowardly'
Iravani denounced the assassination as a "heinous and cowardly act of terrorism."
He noted that "Iranian military advisors...are legally present at the formal request of the Syrian Arab Republic, supporting and assisting in the fight against terrorism."
The envoy reminded that the assassination represented the second assault on Iranian advisors this month, following a strikingly similar attack perpetrated by the Israeli regime on December 2.
Iravani called on the Security Council "to fulfill its charter obligation in the maintenance of international peace and security and strongly condemn the Israeli regime's malevolent activities and its acts of aggression and terrorism in the region."
Such acts, he added, "pose a serious threat to global peace and security."
"This regime must be compelled to comply with international law and abandon its destabilizing activities in the region."