Iran says reserves right to ‘respond decisively’ to Israeli aggression

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has underscored the Islamic Republic’s legitimate right to a decisive response based on international law to the Israeli regime’s recent deadly aggression on the country’s consulate building in the Syrian capital.

Israeli airstrikes targeted the Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus on Monday afternoon, as a result of which seven military advisors of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were martyred.

Condemning the Zionist regime’s aggression in the strongest terms, the Foreign Ministry said in statement on Tuesday that the “targeted attack” was carried out on a known diplomatic facility and on a number of Iran’s anti-terrorism military advisors, who had diplomatic immunity.

The ministry said the “cowardly and appalling” attack on Iran’s consulate building in Damascus contravenes the immunity of diplomatic persons and places, and is in clear violation of international regulations, especially the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and the United Nations Charter.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right based on international law and the United Nations Charter to respond decisively to such terrorist acts,” the statement said.

“It is expected that the heinous attack and violation of international law will be denounced and strongly condemned by governments and international assemblies.”

Underlining that the Islamic Republic will make the Israeli regime regret its new adventure, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said the illegal entity will never be spared from its inevitable defeat by resorting to such heinous crimes.

Warning the international community about Israel’s acts of adventurism to expand the scope of hostilities, the statement placed the blame on the Zionist regime for the consequences of its criminal attack on Iran’s diplomatic mission.

President Raeisi: Israel’s heinous crime will not go unanswered

Iran’s president warns that Israel’s latest crime of assassinating Iranian military advisers in Syria “will not go unanswered.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said the Israeli aggression bespeaks the regime’s ultimate despair following back-to-back failures in its months-long war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“This terrorist attack shows the apex of desperation, helplessness and strategic disorientation of the Zionist regime as a result of its military, political and moral failure in the Gaza Strip after six months of cruel, criminal war, but without any victory, against the resistance movements and the patient and resilient Palestinian nation.”

“It is clear the Zionists failed to deter the power of resistance in Gaza, and now they have resorted to every desperate and slanderous attempt to get out of their political and international isolation.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said such vicious attacks would not compensate for the regime’s irreparable failure in Gaza.

Israeli warplanes bombed with six missiles the Iranian consulate, situated next to the embassy building in Damascus’s Mezzeh district, on Monday afternoon.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps named Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and his deputy General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi as among the martyrs of the terrorist attack.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk